Settling the Score
by McStaken
Summary: Raider!Preston AU: It all started with a call for help, a deal and a dark deed.
1. Liberty or Death

A/N: Lord forgive me, for I have sinned. I couldn't wait anymore. I'll be updating this between wrapping up Rocket. Welcome to Settling the score! Where Preston Garvey is _not_ one of the last surviving Minutemen out there after the Quincy massacre, he's fallen into a lifestyle more akin to a raider. We're going to casually follow the Minutemen quest outline and more than a few odd little sidequests the Sole Survivor would encounter. One or two companions too. Sole Survivor in this case being my main Survivor Althea Shapiro - the occasionally alcoholic, shotgun toting lawyer. Lets get right to it!

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Liberty or death.**

Of all the ways Preston Garvey thought he would die - it wasn't this way. Trapped in the historical museum of Concord with just his old Laser Musket and facing down Jared's hunting party. The others with him were all dead - everyone except Sturges who glanced at him with a fearful look from behind their cover, willing him to have some sort of plan.

He did not.

Stupid, it was a _stupid_ idea to come onto Jared's patch and it had gotten the others killed. Now it would get them killed too. Jared was touchy about his territory and there was no way that some ex-Minuteman raider was going to take an inch of it from him.

Maybe - maybe in some other dimension, Preston Garvey - Garv now, Garv was more of a raider name than Preston - and Sturges hadn't decided to go with Wire and they _hadn't_ settled in Libertalia and maybe - just maybe he hadn't made all the stupid decisions that had led right here to this point - Like becoming something he hated to survive - like watching people tortured or killed for food, ammunition, medical supplies. Like turning his back on everything the Minutemen stood for then maybe if he hadn't, he wouldn't have ended up pinned into a room of the old Concord Museum of Freedom, waiting for death.

He'd have really liked his life to turn out differently but what could you do? Other than survive?

'Garv,' Sturges murmured, his voice was harsh 'What do we do?'

He honestly had no idea. They'd been taking pot-shots at the raiders still outside the museum, trying to thin the herd really, but Garv knew that some of them had branched off and were now making their way slowly up the floors towards the door they'd barricaded. Trapped up here, they didn't stand a chance.

He opened his mouth - but was cut off by a shot that was not aimed at them for once. It was aimed at a half-rusted car further up the road. By squinting, he could just barely see a blue-clad figure huddled behind the rusted metal.

Was that a person?

Concord was a compendium of ways to fuck up and die. Garv knew that. If he and Sturges were in a better situation, he'd have let the intruder take the brunt of the rival's attentions and shooting and slunk off with Sturges into the sunset - but with enemies in the museum itself - that wasn't about to happen.

'Hey! Hey a little help?' He called from the balcony. He could see Sturges giving him a look that clearly demanded to know what he was doing. No self-respecting wastelander would ever help a _raider_. They'd shoot them. But Garv was out of ideas and out of options at this point. 'There's a laser musket down there, help us! Please?'

He cringed. Asking for help was one thing, begging was something completely alien - but he really needed help, he didn't want to die here.

A dark-haired head appeared over the roof of the car, glanced up at him and then down at the battered doors. There were still three or so raiders between the stranger and the doors. If he were a betting man, he would have bet that she was calculating the most direct way to get to those doors without getting shot. He already knew her marksmanship was beyond subpar - her missed shots were what had alerted the party to her presence in the first place and that flash of bright blue and yellow was doing nothing for her stealth. It looked like something out of a vault.

Great - he had an intellect on his hands. They were doomed.

She surprised him on all accounts. There was a muffled shattering sound as a molotov bounced and then smashed on the tarmac of the road, scattering the three easily - but the molotov hadn't been aimed at any one of them - it seemed a distractionary tactic. From his vantage point, Garv watched the stranger inch her way around the rusted cars and sneak up behind an unwise raider that had stumbled back against a Corvette.

With one swift movement, she'd pulled the tiny pistol up, balanced on the roof of the car and blown his brains out before ducking down and using the debris for cover as the other two finally noticed their friend was down.

Maybe he wasn't completely screwed.

The second raider went down the same way as the first, which left the last one confused, angry and stumbling back towards the doors. The blue-clad figure moved carefully from behind the cars - the gun held in front of her warningly. She seemed to be trying to _talk_ to the shirtless maniac.

'I don't want to kill you.'

'This ain't none of your concern! This is a territory dispute-' The raider spat back, all bravado. Garv noticed that his hand was straying for a blade strapped to his trousers.

'Seems like a little more than a dispute.' She replied. Though the tone was light-hearted and easygoing, he noticed that her gun never wavered. She didn't seem to notice his straying hand. He had his back to the balcony. Garv lined up the shot easily.

'If you know what's good for you - you'll-'

He didn't get much further than that before Garv put a round in the back of his head. The stranger looked up at the balcony sharply as the headless raider fell to the ground and he could see through the curtain of thick hair and blood splattered across her face that she did not look happy. Those blue/green eyes sparkled with a kind of anger he'd seen time and again - and, maybe if he survived this, hoped to see in various guises in the future. He didn't care she was angry at him, he'd done what he'd had to do. He'd done worse things for survival than put a raider down.

One less asshole shooting at him.

'I'd get in here if I were you!' He warned her. 'More'll be here any minute.'

She spent another second glaring at him before she accepted the wisdom of that and ran to the steps to scoop up something a little more powerful than the tiny 10mm she seemed to be carrying.

Garv released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding when he heard her kick the doors in, venting her frustrations. He caught the eye of Sturges who was staring at him again. 'What?' He demanded.

'You sure this is such a good idea?' The man asked.

'No.' Garv replied. 'But we don't have a lot of choices right now, if she can make it up to us, she could be useful.'

'If she's hostile?' Sturges asked.

'Then we'll put her down.'


	2. Quid Pro Quo

**Chapter 2: Quid Pro Quo**

Their saviour turned out to be a slim woman that could have been the south side of 20 or a fresh faced 30. She'd tried to wipe off the blood that had splattered her face and smeared her make-up in the process. The mix of blood and black eyeliner drew more attention to her eyes. They were hard, but underneath that was a vulnerability that simply screamed that this kind of warfare was not something she was accustomed to.

The bright blue suit hadn't fared well either. It was covered in blood and dust as she tussled with the raiders that had been trying to breach the room the two had locked themselves in.

'I don't know who you are, but you have some shit timing.' Garv greeted. 'I'm Garv, this is Sturges.'

Sturges nodded to her and resumed his former post, watching for reinforcements.

'Althea Shapiro - story of my life.' She replied hesitantly. 'You're dressed like the people downstairs.' She noted with a creep of wariness. Garv was impressed, she wasn't quite as gullible as he'd taken her for - she still had a tight grip on the musket he'd directed her to grab on her way into the building, too, so she wasn't completely stupid.

'That's because we're raiders.' Sturges chipped in. She looked confused. 'You don't know what raiders are?'

Her eyes clouded as she seemed to consider exactly what to say. 'I'm not from….I...I've been asleep for a long time.' She admitted.

To not know what raiders were? 'How long we talkin'?' Sturges prodded.

'About two hundred years, apparently.' She replied. Her hands tightened on the gun.

Sturges' eyes widened but suddenly, to Garv, it all made sense. 'You're pre-war?!' No wonder she seemed so out of place and inexperienced. She was. 'How?!' He demanded.

Althea shrugged, but wouldn't really make eye-contact. 'We went into a vault. It was a cryo-vault. We didn't even know what they were doing they just - the bombs fell and -' Her breath hitched as she stared at one of the desks for a second before she snapped back. 'I'm looking for someone - my son.'

'I'm looking to live a couple more days.' Garv replied. It was certainly novel to meet someone who claimed to have come from a time before the bombs fell - even if it was just before - but pressing survival meant he wasn't about to be awed by this information. It didn't change the fact that they were trapped in this building - in this room even - relying on an inexperienced, ill-equipped woman.

'What exactly is going on?' She demanded, a hand rested lightly on her hip. 'Why are these people trying to kill you?'

'They're trying to kill us because we're not supposed to be here.' She still looked puzzled. Seriously, this woman was clueless. More than likely going to get herself killed if left to her own devices. 'This is Jared's territory and we're not part of his crew.' He explained slowly.

'Like gang disputes?' She frowned, then sighed. 'That doesn't seem to have changed.'

'Look, all you need to know is that we're stuck and we need all the help we can get.' Garv replied.

Althea looked conflicted but Garv knew the type - a bleeding heart have-a-go hero wouldn't be able to resist helping someone in need - even if that someone was wearing a scuffed Minuteman hat over raider leathers.

Still, even now, when he thought he had the measure of her, she replied 'If I help you out, will you help me?'

'What, help you find your missing kid?!'

'It's quid pro quo.' She replied.

Garv's face twisted up, clearly confused. 'Quid pro _what?_ '

'I do something for you, you do something for me.' She translated.

'You want me to help you find some missing kid, just for helping us with this?' That was the shittest deal he'd ever heard. It was completely skewed in her favour. No way. 'You think that when the reinforcements come that they'll just leave you alone?' He replied. 'You're part of this now. They aren't discriminatory when it comes to putting bullets in people. You made yourself a target by helping us.'

'You asked for help.' She replied. 'That's entrapment.'

'Call it whatever you want, but right now the deal is that we survive.'

'Shit, we got more incoming, Garv.' Sturges warned from his vantage point. 'Way more.'

He stared her down, watching her face flick from puzzled to angry and then a frown. He wasn't wrong, raiders were completely indiscriminate about their victims. They didn't care who was hurt or killed by their actions, so long as whatever happened benefitted them. Garv had been on both sides of the situation. If she chose to walk away at this point, then she'd be dead before she made it out of the nest of boarded up houses surrounding the museum.'What's the plan?' She asked.

Garv froze. He didn't have a plan and Jared clearly wasn't jerking around with how much he wanted the two remaining interloping raiders dead - there was no way that he was letting himself be captured. Raiders could be particularly sadistic, especially when you'd killed more than a few of their buddies.

'I gotta idea.' Sturges supplied.

'What?' Garv demanded.

The ex-handyman pointed up further along the roof to where the rusted tip of a wing could just be made out. 'That's an old military Vertibird up there.' He advised. 'Gotta be something we can use in it.'

'You're just mentioning this now? You asshole!' Garv growled before he forced himself to relax. Getting angry at Sturges wasn't about to help their predicament. Sturges took things like that on the chin. It didn't phase him in the slightest. 'Look, we'll cover you if you want to go see what's there.'

Althea glanced from him to the tip of the Vertibird and back. 'If they're as bad as you make them out to be - extra firepower would be useful.'

Garv snorted - no shit. With nothing else forthcoming from the tense raider, Thea nodded and then made for the door with a determined look. Once she was out of the room, Garv glanced at Sturges, still quite pissed that the man had withheld information that could have helped them earlier - like a lot earlier.

'I think the girl's got about as much chance as a cat in the doghouse.' He replied, seeing Garv's look. 'Saying that, I'd give the same odds on us living through this.'

Yeah, Garv thought so too.

* * *

She was back within five minutes and seemed genuinely excited about something.

'What did you find?'

'What does this place run on?!' She rushed. 'I heard the recordings - this place has juice. It can't be hooked up to the main power because they wouldn't be playing. What does it run on?!'

Garv took a step back, alarmed clearly by her excited nature. She must've seen his reluctance as not knowing. She then turned to Sturges.

'Runs on a fusion core I think. It's down in what's left of the basement but the door's locked - why?' The handyman frowned in curiosity.

'Brilliant!'

Garv did not deal well with not knowing. It was letting things out of your control that got you killed out here. 'What the hell did you find up there?!' He demanded.

'Anybody got a bobby pin? On second thought - doesn't matter, I think I have one.' She began to root around in that impressive head of hair.

'I'd rather know now!' Garv replied angrily, blocking her way as she made to get around him.

'It's power armour.' Thea replied, perfectly serious.

Garv's eyebrows lifted. 'Holy shit - real power armour?'

'Yes!' She smiled. 'I'm amazed it survived this long. But it's core is completely burnt out - I need a new one.'

'The one from downstairs.' Sturges grinned. 'I'll be damned.'

'Yes!'

Garv had never seen someone so excited by the prospect of crawling into a 200 year old tin can but it would definitely give the other raiders something to pause about. Nobody messes with someone wearing two inch thick armour plating.

'You sure you can pick that lock?' Sturges asked doubtfully. 'Looks awful tough,'

Her face fell as she pulled the pin free from her hair. 'You think so? I'm not a criminal mastermind.'

'Not like Garv then,' Sturges laughed but the burble died a horrific death between them. 'He's not - we're not -'

'Sturges…' Garv groaned. 'Do you have a solution or not?' Knowing Sturges, there was always a solution. The man would not present a problem unless he had already found a solution. It was what kept him alive for so long in Wire's gang. You don't shoot the guy that can fix something you can't and can think his way around anything.

'Sure do, boss man.' The ex-handyman grinned and pointed to a dented, dusty computer sitting on a desk. It looked like one good sneeze would make it collapse onto itself. Garv had ruled that out of his immediate universe because apart from bludgeoning someone over the head with it - computers had never amounted to much. 'I took a poke at it, but it definitely isn't going to go down for ol' Sturges. You wanna take a crack?'

'Will it open the door downstairs?' Thea wondered, approaching the centuries old thing.

'Y'know, I haven't got the faintest. But it's worth a try just so's you don't ruin that pretty hairdo.' Sturges drawled and Garv had to resist rolling his eyes. Even as a fully kitted up raider - there was something just so country-boy and out of place about Sturges but it got a smile out of their new friend nonetheless.

'Whatever you're doing, I'd hurry. They're almost on us.' Garv reminded her.

With that little threat over her head, Thea approached the terminal and booted it up. Green and black glow ran down her face as she swiftly moved through the operating files, looking for that one key word that would gain her access.

Garv situated himself against the old, crumbling plasterwork of the balcony doors and listened. He could faintly hear the shouts and carousing followed by a bullet or two of decent aim pinging off the brickwork.

Seconds later, Sturges was right beside him. He risked a glance outside the balcony and whistled. 'Awful lotta partygoers.'

'We need that Power armour.' Garv glanced at Thea. In the gloom it looked like the information was rolling down her face. 'Hey Vaultie, how's it coming?'

She glanced up at him in surprise and confusion. ' _Vaultie?!_ ' She demanded, her hands paused on the keyboard.

'Keep going!' Garv roared.

She jumped and turned back to the computer. 'It's going,' She growled 'And that isn't helping me. You can't rush hacking.'

'I can if it means I won't get my head blown off in the next five minutes!' Garv snarled back.

'Mom, dad, can y'all just stop the bickering?' Sturges interjected. 'In case you haven't noticed - we got problems.'

'No! Really?!' Garv demanded. The lynching party was getting close enough now that their aim was improving - more and more bullets were pinging off the brickwork.

'Shee-ite. Even with the armour it looks like it's gonna be dicey to get outta here, Garv.' Sturges murmured as Thea slapped the computer in anger.

Yeah. He knew it probably would have been. Jared was throwing everything at them.

'Yes!' Thea exclaimed suddenly from the other side of the room. Both men snapped to her fist-pumping.

'You're in?' Garv demanded.

'I'm in!' She laughed in shock. 'And I can open the door!'

'Then what're you waiting for?!' Garv roared angrily. 'They're going to be at the doors any minute! Do you want to go and get it while they're shooting at you?!'

* * *

A/N: I forgot to mention on the first chapter that since this is an AU - a raider AU no less - that I'll be getting comfortable with the character. I've changed some things about him - after all, he's a raider now - but I'm not completely changing him into something unrecognisable (hopefully). I was never very good at beginnings, so please bear with me as I get the initial quest chapters out of the way.

The interest in the first chapter alone is motivating. I hope that this chapter proves just as interesting as the first. I'm always open to constructive criticism!


	3. Freedom

She was back several minutes later than Garv was expecting. For a few seconds, Garv had doubts she'd make it there and back in time. He could hear them trying to get through the doors below and the basement was almost directly underneath it.

'What took you so long?' He harried her on her way past.

'I barricaded the doors!' She replied and slammed out of the room on a mission.

Garv paused and turned to Sturges incredulously. 'She took time _we don't have_ to barricade the doors?'

Sturges shrugged. 'She musta been thinkin' about us. Don't see much of that anymore.'

Seconds later, something went past the balcony and landed in the street, scattering the people who were using badly made guns and debris to try and force the museum doors open. The impact shook the building and rained down dust on the two raiders.

Garv winced as he heard a familiar grinding acceleration.

'Damn, girl's found a mini-gun too.' Sturges leaned out to watch the carnage.

For the first time, Garv actually entertained the idea that they may just survive this. With Power Armour and a mini-gun there was no way any of Jared's boys could stand up to anything close to that.

Then the building shook a second time, but not with the impact of a suit of power armour - a roar that sent tingles of fear and terror to wrap around Garv's spine.

'Atom on a spitroast - that's a Deathclaw, Garv!' Sturges gasped from his vantage point - but Garv had known it would have been. He knew roars like that in the pit of his soul. In some of his deepest, darkest nightmares. It must've felt Vaultie's landing and surfaced to investigate.

That was it, she was _fucked_. There was no way that someone that short and impossibly maladjusted to life in the wasteland could possibly get enough of a handle on that mini-gun and Armour to face down a Deathclaw. Not with a five minute tutorial by raiders against raiders.

He risked a glance around the chipped plasterwork and watched as she turned to face it. It was _ugly._ One of the ugliest he'd ever seen. It must've been hiding in the sewer because it could not be making that smell on it's own. It's hide was covered in slime and dirt - and blood.

Part of him wanted to use this to his advantage and run now while they were both distracted - The bodies littering the road around the two duellists spoke of what happened to the massive force that Jared had sent to kill them. It would be the perfect time; but he hesitated. Garv may have been a raider, he may have seen and done some horrible things, but he was loyal where it counted. He had gotten her into this, persuaded her to help them. She had barricaded the doors for them. Dammit, he owed it to her to stick it out.

He was just about to tell her to haul ass and try to shake off the thing when his voice died in his throat. She was actually squaring up to the Deathclaw - but she wasn't shooting _at_ it. What the hell was she _doing?_

'Boss man - Garv, she's shooting at the _cars!_ ' Sturges whispered in fascination. They were forced to squint against the bright flash as a car's nuclear battery ignited and caught the Deathclaw a blow across it's bows. The giant lizard staggered and roared an unearthly challenge as it began to head for her again.

Maybe brains wasn't so bad, he mused as he watched her work. She was doing damage to it - amazingly enough. Garv had never seen someone fight like this.

He expected the mini-gun to run out of bullets - she'd chewed up a lot of raiders before it had shown up - but she did not. He watched her fumble with the heavy thing, thinking it was jammed.

'It's empty!' He yelled. 'Do something, Vaultie!' Garv turned his old, patched Laser Musket onto the giant murderous lizard. Deathclaws were notorious for having the toughest skin in the wasteland, so making a dent in it with a laser musket was going to be hard.

The Deathclaw turned to follow the noise and pain - it roared up at them from the road and turned to run towards the balcony. If she didn't get it's attention back soon, it would climb the building to come for Sturges and Garv. She flung the useless mini-gun to the ground and then pulled from somewhere in the suit the gun that she'd taken from the steps of the museum. It looked even smaller in the hands of Power Armour as she faced the Deathclaw than it really should have. It was like shooting BB bullets off a dinosaur but when a round clipped it's curled horn it roared and turned back to Thea as she slowly moved backwards, leading it towards more cars.

When it finally died - and it gave a window-shattering howl as it did - Garv stood and listened to the wind carrying it's death-screams across the commonwealth. He couldn't believe she'd done it. He couldn't believe she'd done it with a dinky Laser Musket salvaged from one of his crew.

This woman was something else.

'Woo! You go girl!' Sturges yelled in triumph as the helmeted head came up to stare at the balcony.

'Quid pro quo, Garv.' Thea's voice sounded tinny from inside the Power Armour.

Goddamn. After all that she still wanted that deal. Sturges grinned at him from the other side of the balcony. He leaned over and called down 'You're not done yet, Vaultie! We gotta get out of this shit-hole and find somewhere to lay low before Jared wonders where his guys are.'

'Lay low?' She answered. 'I know just the place.'

* * *

A/N: I know, it's short. I hate publishing anything under 1000 words but this is the end of the quest When Freedom Calls and that means that I have one or two more chapters of actual story plot before I get onto the random fun quests! Not long now!


	4. And Breathe

**Chapter 4: And Breathe**

The place was run-down and a ghost-town - The whole place seemed to have been deserted and left alone for some time. Maybe it was the fact it was so out of the way, maybe it was because this whole area was Jared's territory. Maybe it was to do with the psychotic Mr Handy who looked like he was going to blowtorch Sturges' face off til Vaultie managed to extract herself from the Power Armour and shout 'Codsworth, they're with me!' At which point the robot had stopped trying to murder them and said with some sort of chipper, high-brow accent that any friend of his mistresses was a friend of his.

He already felt at home.

One of the half-destroyed houses looked as though it had seen some repair. Inside, candles glittered from every surface - giving a soft homey look to the place. Vaultie had obviously been doing some serious inventory though - anything that could be of use was scattered around the sparse living room. Garv had a sneaking suspicion she'd raided the other houses around here for anything that wasn't nailed down.

'I've never heard of this place before.' He murmured as he glanced around the room critically.

Sturges had wandered off, fascinated by it all and determined to take stock, which left Garv and Thea alone. Sturges always was more handyman than raider. Wire usually gave him the jobs that required brains to pull off. He hadn't taken to being a raider as much as some of them had - as much as Garv had.

'I used to live here,' She said simply and turned to face him. 'It was called Sanctuary Hills. The world is….different now. What was that thing I killed?'

'It's called a Deathclaw.' Garv replied. 'People don't usually survive their encounters.'

'Gee, I wonder why.' She gave a mirthless snort and glanced at him in puzzlement, clearly working her way up to a question. 'How did you end up in the museum?'

He groaned and settled back on the musty chair he'd perched on. 'Wire.'

'Wire?' She frowned. 'Who - or what - is Wire?'

'He's an old friend. We joined the Minutemen together.'

'Minutemen?' Thea frowned but there was a tinkle of recognition in there. 'The old militia?'

' "At a minute's notice." ' He quoted.

'So, the minutemen were reformed - what happened?' She sat on the box across from him and he noticed she was trying to give him a penetrating stare, as though saying _I know all about you so why don't you tell me what I know in your own words._ The long stare with associated paperwork. Which was, when all was said and done, bluffing on a bad hand because Garv knew that she knew nothing about him or the state of the area she had once lived in 200 years ago.

He seemed to freeze up and then said harshly 'None of your business.'

'Garv-'

'We survived an onslaught, Vaultie.' He replied. 'We were lucky. I can't helping you find your kid. I've got shit of my own to do.'

She sat back. 'I used to be a lawyer, you know. Do they still have lawyers in post-apocalyptia?'

'No.' He replied. 'It's close, but it's not quite hell yet. When you got justice on your mind, the only way you're getting it is to mete it out yourself or die trying.'

She grumbled something that sounded like ' _Doesn't sound very fair'_ and Garv once again felt the world was skewed. Of course it wasn't very fair. It was never fair. When you've got starving people and "honest" citizens refusing to pay you for a hard day's work and you have to come home and tell them _'Sorry folks, you won't be eating today.'_ It wasn't fair.

'You have no clue what it's like out there.' He snapped angrily. 'You think that people give a shit about any starving family but their own?!'

'You sound like you're talking from personal experience.' She commented with infuriating quietness.

He gave her a glare. For being such a nerd, she was quite worryingly observant but he was resolute. His problems were his own and he wanted to keep them as such.

'Anyway,' Thea sighed. 'You're welcome to stay as long as you like. I mean, it's just me here-'

'We won't be staying that long.' Garv grunted. 'We're too close to Concord from here. It's a good place to hide out for a night or two but the longer we wait, the more time that Jared has on knocking at our door with a few choice friends like a Fat Boy. This place looks like it wouldn't even hold up to a sneeze, let alone a raider attack.'

'You're right.' She sighed at last. 'You'd know better than anyone. I need to shore up the defences on this place.'

'Are you seriously thinking about staying here?!' He demanded incredulously. 'Do you know who lives just down the road? The guy who sent all those guys to kill us?!'

'This is my home!' Thea shot back and stood on her feet. 'This is _my_ place. I have Codsworth.'

'What's he going to do? Talk posh at them so they run away scared?' Garv sneered and stood up to loom over her. 'You'll be dead in under a week.'

'You won't help me! And then you belittle me!' She yelled shrilly, under threat from his height. 'This isn't my world!'

'And you are none of my business!' He yelled back, viciously.

There was a pause as the echoes of their voices bounced off the damaged but empty walls around them. Eventually, when their breathing and flushed faces had evened out, she said 'You were chased to Concord, weren't you?'

'Doesn't take a genius to work that out.' He shot back. 'I wouldn't have liked to have gotten stuck there, but it was the only defensible position around.'

'What did you do to this Jared to piss him off that badly?' Thea asked gently.

He made a point to watch her face, studying her reactions as he said 'I was there to kill him, Vaultie.'

* * *

A/N: My apologies for being gone for so long, and for such a short chapter. These last few months have been a struggle - not just with creative drain (I've been running three projects at the same time for a little over six month - I was bound to hit the wall) but also due to personal problems/circumstance. Oh and _Skyrim_. Skyrim's partly to blame too.


	5. Gravamen

_**Chapter 5: Gravamen**_

 _Gravamen - things weighting down; The basic element or complaint of a lawsuit._

There was a flicker there that he had been waiting for. She baulked. He knew she had some skill in maintaining a neutral face - it went with her profession. The things that their clients could and would have been accused of required a straight face - but she wasn't a stone-cold killer.

'He's a raider, Vaultie.' Garv reasoned.

'So are you.' She replied. 'How would you react if someone had said they were going to kill Sturges?'

'I'd kill them first.' Garv replied without remorse. 'You learn that early or you don't get the chance to learn at all. It's us or them.'

'It wasn't always like that.' She insisted. He couldn't help noticing that when she was excited or agitated her hands grew more animated. As though she were trying to shape the argument physically. Was that a lawyer trait or just a quirk of hers in general? Either way, if she wanted to live more than a few days she would need to stop that, it drew attention to herself and sometimes the last thing you wanted to do was bring attention to yourself. 'There was a time you could meet and discuss your differences-'

He laughed harshly in her face. 'Keep telling yourself that when Jared gets here to find out what happened to his men. You'll wish you were dead.'

'So that makes murdering a man in cold blood the only option?' She frowned. 'Of course, doing that would help you in your main objective anyway, wouldn't it?'

He shrugged. Honestly, it was suicidal to go back there and try with just Sturges but he couldn't go back home and tell Wire that he'd gotten the rest of the team killed - could he have some more to go and finish off the job, please? The man would put a bullet in his brain for the sheer cheek. 'You don't have to come with me, Vaultie.'

'There's that word again.' She frowned. 'Why are you calling me Vaultie?'

Wasn't it obvious? 'It's a nickname.'

'It's a distancing measure.' She replied and Garv had that feeling again that he was under a microscope. Every word and tell under scrutiny. She knew he was purposefully avoiding using her name to avoid getting too attached. Just in case she died or they were forced to make a tough call. It was easier on the conscience to know her by a nickname than an actual name. It was easier to fall into the trap of being friends and when dreadful necessity presented itself - a situation where it was you or them - Shit like that messed a person up. Got them killed. That was one reason that Raiders had very few friends. 'And I want to come. You're right, if I let him dictate the terms of warfare, he'll be at the advantage.'

Garv blinked. For a second, she almost seemed human and understanding - then came out with that like a walking dictionary. Dictate the terms of warfare? Sounded like something out of an old history book rather than from a living, breathing person. 'Something like that.' He agreed.

She nodded and looked pained that in all likelihood, she would have to murder someone again in the next few hours, days, weeks. She wasn't a Wastelander - she wasn't a killer at heart.

Atom preserve him, she was going to be lucky to make it weeks on her own - and he was basically convincing her to let him throw her to the wolves. The thought sent a tingle of guilt running through him and he cursed inwardly. This was why you didn't get attached, this was why you used nicknames and bravado and drank. Because he'd only just met her, barely knew her, and she was already worming her way in. The thought of feeding an innocent like her to Jared's bullets made him uncomfortable.

'What if we made a new deal?'

What? He dragged his damn brain around the new conversation. She sounded thoughtful and was staring off into the distance before she snapped back to him. 'The deal was that we survive.' He pointed out.

'Which, I'll be helping you do.' Thea replied evenly. 'By killing that raider that almost killed you.'

'You just agreed that it would help you as well!'

'In the short run.' She shrugged. 'It's like chess. You've got to think at least three moves ahead to win the game. If you were sent there to kill this _Jared_ \- then that means that Wire wants his territory. He wants to expand. In a month or two, I could be right back in our current predicament but with you as my _enemy._ '

And here was where intelligence became an annoyance to him - because she was right. 'So, what do you want?' He asked in irritation.

'I have some conditions.' She agreed. 'First, I want Sanctuary Hills left alone. Second, I want to know where I can find information on my son, and lastly I want you to help me find someone who will help me the rest of the way.'

'You're not asking for much, are you?' He said scathingly.

'Do you see anyone else around here willing to help you do something suicidally murderous?' She threw a hand around the empty, slightly chilled room.

She had a point. And he knew there was a detective in Diamond City who was supposed to specialize in things like missing persons. Diamond City was on the way back to Libertalia. Supposing they survived this and went back like heroes, they could afford to drop her at the front gates and wash their hands of her. Wire wouldn't be too concerned with Sanctuary if Garv played down the resources and played up the usefulness of their new partner. Let her have that crumbling corner when they could have Corvega.

'Lets make a new deal.' He agreed reluctantly.

* * *

Morning the next day. Garv had slept fitfully, but then again he never slept very good these days without a load on board. Too many years of watching over his shoulder. He'd found a cosy enough corner in the house opposite Vaultie's. Sturges had also chosen there to sleep, although falling asleep on the power armour frame - wrench in hand - did not seem to be part of the plan. Garv kicked him awake on his way past as the sun rose.

Sturges was his usual self, despite what must've been an uncomfortable night. He was still acting like a hyperactive mutt when they'd set out from Sanctuary. They weren't planning on taking on Jared immediately, Garv wanted to survey the situation - eyeball how many men Jared had pulled to protect his operation, see just how fucked they were. If they made good time, they could be back at Sanctuary to nail down some plans in a little under two days.

Garv's first assault on the old Corvega plant hadn't exactly gone to plan - and he'd had more men and the element of surprise on his side then. No doubt that after Jared's hunting party hadn't returned, the man would beef up the security around the plant. Raiders were insane - but not stupid, which meant that it would be even more difficult to get in there and do what needed to be done; even with a smaller force.

The three of them had gone hardly very far when they hit the Red Rocket that they'd seen by the gloom of the closing daylight yesterday. Vaultie paused, considering something. 'Can you wait for two minutes?'

What? They had a hell of a lot of way to go before they hit Lexington and she wanted a break already? But she simply dropped to the ground and unslung her pack. It took a few seconds of digging before she came up with a can of purified water and a battered can of something that smelled like 200-year-old dog food.

'Vaultie, what -' He demanded.

'Here doggy!' She rattled the can and Garv watched in fascination as a skinny german shepherd slunk out of the building, nose twitching at the smell.. It moved forward and then seemingly caught the smell of Garv and Sturges. It almost bellied the floor and began to growl.

'Shh, it's okay.' Vaultie sympathised and closed in on the dog. Garv thought she was nuts. Patently the dog was on edge and liable to go crazy, but she was still approaching it. 'He doesn't like you.' She murmured as her hand stroked through the raised hackles.

Gee, he wondered why? Maybe he wasn't a dog person. Dogs had always made him edgy - Raiders trained their dogs to be virtually uncontrollable weapons. They had even been known to savage their handlers in the heat of a fight.

'Where'd you find him?' Sturges wondered and dropped to his own knees. 'Hey boy!'

The dog reached out to gingerly sniff Sturges' hand before retreating behind Thea again. As he did, Garv caught sight of a bandage wrapped around it's leg which explained why it was so defensive - injured animals were cautious and temperamental when in pain. The patch was haphazard and badly tied. He had the sneaking suspicion that it was Vaultie's handiwork.

'I found him before I found you guys,' Thea chatted as she spooned the glop into an old, battered plastic dog bowl. 'He'd been attacked by something and his back leg was badly infected. Never did find an owner but I've been giving him half a stimpak and he looks better.'

She'd been wasting supplies on the mutt. Garv, as someone who had gone without essentials like medical aid and stimpaks sometimes was dumbfounded. Supplies like that had probably been plentiful in the old world, but in today's Commonwealth they were hard to find and harder still to keep. Medical convoys were some of the most targeted caravans.

'How's your leg looking, huh?' She asked and gently peeled the grimy cloth back. 'Oh it looks so much better.' She cooed and pulled out another stimpak. 'One more ought to clean it right up.'

The dog paid no attention to them anymore, his attention was ravenously on the food and water being offered. He didn't even flinch as she administered the half-stimpak in her hand to his leg and massaged it in. The filthy cloth that had been wrapped around it went back into the bag and she pulled out a fresh one. This was some sort of chequered material that looked as though it had been torn up from an old pre-war dress. Probably one of her neighbours' dresses that she'd scavenged Garv realised.

'You'll be right as rain in no time.' She smiled and scratched him behind the ear. The dog turned and licked her hand before returning to it's dinner. Garv noticed, however, that it was continuously glancing up, keeping him within it's sights.

He didn't like the dog and the dog didn't like him. That was understood.

'We could use a dog.' Sturges murmured. 'Be a scout, track some-'

'No.' Thea replied. 'He's injured. I couldn't ask him to come on a dangerous thing like this with such an awful wound.'

For once, Garv agreed with her. A dog you'd only just met - even if it was friendly to her anyway - was a liability. Would it run from the gunfight? Would it savage anything near it like a raider dog would? Most raiders he knew bred larger breeds like this but the deadly ones - the deadly ones were the smaller breeds built like tanks.

It was supposed to be a recon mission. If the dog did catch scent of raiders - and Garv had a distinct feeling it didn't like them which was absurd; it was a dog! - and went mental, any kind of stealth and low profile went out of the window. Then he'd have wished that he'd taken the stupid power armour with him.

'Are we moving?' Garv demanded acidly. 'We've got a long way to go before we get to Lexington, Vaultie.'

'Can't we-' Thea tried, unwilling to leave the dog to it's own devices for such a long trek.

'C'mon darlin'.' Sturges half-smiled at the look on Garv's face. 'Someone's gettin cranky.'

She sighed heavily. 'I'll be a few days, boy.' Thea murmured rubbing him behind an ear and ignoring the irritated waiting of Garv behind her. 'You be careful, okay?'

The dog barked affirmative and went back to eating.

With a quick dust off of her knees, Thea stood. 'Alright. Lets go.'


	6. Bona Fide

**Chapter 6: Bona Fide**

 _In good faith._

As they walked the cracked and broken road towards Lexington, Garv was thinking forward to the actual assault on Corvega. They would need more ammo, not just for the laser muskets but the mini-gun too. He had probed the idea of taking the power armour with them on their run at Corvega but dismissed it just as easily. Yes, it would have been a boon to them when it came down to fighting but it was also heavy, slow and horrendously noisy. Trying to break in stealthily with power armour was a sincerely stupid move - and with only one fusion core in it there was also the problem of what happened when it's power source ran dry. The suit would be stuck. Useless. Garv wasn't about to take the risk of relying on the suit, only for it to give up the ghost at the worst possible time. It was going to have to stay in Sanctuary for now.

They were skirting the edge of Thicket Excavations when Vaultie spotted activity just beyond the rusted chain-link fence. He didn't want a detour, but Garv knew there weren't any settlements anywhere near here, so what, in Atom's name, was a lone figure doing out here?

The three approached cautiously and peered over an outcrop of cut stone to watch the anomalous man dressed in some sort of scavenger gear start beating the metal skin of the machine he was facing with accompanying curses.

'Sturges?' Garv murmured. 'What is that?'

Their resident handyman raider considered the scene. 'It looks like an old pre-war industrial pump. See the pipes going down into the water?' He pointed. 'Thing looks busted to hell, though.'

'We should go down and help.' Vaultie replied.

Both men turned to stare at her. Getting involved in anything that wasn't your business was a fast way to an early grave. Garv had learned that one early on after Quincy but Thea returned his incredulous look with a determined one of her own. 'What? It's the right thing to do!'

To get killed, maybe.

'We're dressed up like raiders,' Garv pointed out. 'Most people tend to shoot first when they see us coming.'

'But you're with me.' She pointed out. 'And not being threatening.'

Again, he had to marvel at just how innocent Vaultie really was. They didn't need to be threatening - that was what looking like a raider was _about._

'Look,' She replied in irritation. 'You can wait for me or you can help me and get it done quicker - but where I come from, you lend a hand and help people.' She wasn't making this easy - possibly because she knew that they needed her help in Lexington and was clearly using it to her advantage. 'Sturges? You know how to fix industrial pumps?' She pressed.

'Well, I wouldn't say I know _exactly,_ but generally I find when I open 'er up I can get the feel for most things.' Sturges replied modestly.

'This is going to end badly.' Garv warned her.

'How can it?' She replied with a smile. 'We're helping people. Isn't that what being a Minuteman was about?'

Garv fumed. He was an ex-Minuteman with a laundry list of misdemeanors, murders and racketeering against him. He hadn't helped people in a very long time.

Sturges chose that moment to say 'Boss man, wouldn't it just be faster to help her do this and get on the road again rather than argue about it first?'

That stung. Mostly because Garv knew he was right but some because Sturges honestly believed that Vaultie would win the ensuing argument regardless. The man was always too smart for his own good. Both of them were giving him expectant looks. Garv sighed and growled 'Fine, as long as it's just a quick fix and he doesn't try shooting us on sight - then _we are gone_.'

Sturges laughed as Vaultie ripped off a half-assed salute and scrambled over the rock.

This was going to end badly.

* * *

The road down to Thicket Excavations, despite having been abandoned for 200 years, still bore the faint tire tracks of the rusted, unmoveable tractors that had - presumably - been used to shift the large slabs of rock from the deep water-filled pit.

Garv had always wondered just how the old world had worked before the bombs fell, what the sometimes strange remains of machines or buildings were used for - but on a farmboy's education, he'd never really been able to read or write very well and after Quincy, Wire and the boys would have laughed themselves stupid if he'd attempted some kind of sissy thing like that.

They were spotted as soon as they skirted around the old, rusted bubble shelters that held crumbling desks and rotten files.

The scavenger didn't shoot on sight - which was a good sign. Still, Garv did not want to jeopardize what little ammo they had left after Concord and hung back with his mouth shut, letting Vaultie do all the talking.

'Looks like you're having trouble there.' She commented.

'Yeah,' The scavenger murmured warily. 'What's it to you?'

If Garv hadn't have been on edge, he probably would have had a little dark delight in the taken aback look on Vaultie's face. She looked shocked that someone could be so direct and impolite. 'We were passing through and you look like you're in a bit of trouble. I'm Althea, this is Garv and Sturges. You need some help?'

The scavver gave her a jaded, calculating look before he stuck out one greasy hand and announced 'Sully Mathis. You from a vault?'

Thea glanced down at her vault suit and then up at Mathis. 'Is it that obvious?'

'You're wearing one of their dorky space-age jumpsuits. I kinda assumed.' Mathis agreed.

Thea chuckled nervously as Garv frowned at the odd line of questioning but he said nothing as she joked 'Hey, it's more comfortable than it looks. What're you trying to do, exactly?

'Trying to get this old hunk of junk to work but it doesn't want to. There's got to be something good at the bottom of this hole but I think there's some holes in the pipe that're dropping the water flow.'

'Sounds like an easy fix,' Sturges suggested.

'You'd think so, but the waters polluted to shit and there ain't no way I'm turning into a ghoul for whatever's at the bottom.'

There. They could say they'd offered and could now get back to plotting mass murder - because Jared's boys and girls weren't likely to go down quietly. Garv knew that Jared himself was on a cocktail of chems that would kill anyone else, it stood to reason that the rest of them were junkies too - and when you were high as a kite you felt _immortal._ You'd fight to the last and fight hard.

'I've got some Rad-x somewhere.' Vaultie interrupted and began digging around in her pockets for the small pill bottles the drug was kept in.

Garv cursed as Mathis brightened and said 'You do?!'

She pulled out the bottle and gave it a shake with a self-satisfied smile. 'Couple of these and I'll be fine. I can repair the pipes if Sturges gives you a hand with the pump.'

'Mighty happy to.' Sturges replied but Garv noticed the chipper had left him.

'Well,' Mathis considered for a second. 'Alright. Can't say fairer than that! I got some scrap in a corner over there with a pack of duct tape.' Mathis thumbed the rusted caravan behind them.

Thea nodded and walked off to collect her supplies, leaving Sturges and Garv to stare at their new "friend".

The scavver who called himself Sully Mathis made Garv suspicious, but he had no discernable reason why. He claimed to be a scavenger, looking for loot at the bottom of the excavation but as soon as Garv had laid eyes upon him, he was reminded of the type of systematic raiders that he'd come across. After a while, you got a feel for raiders. The ones who were cowardly,the ones who were sadistically good at it, and the ones who were systematic. The ones who were too cool, too rational. They would think about the best way to achieve their goals. They were the ones to watch - and he should know, he fell into the same category. There was something about Mathis that didn't quite ring true to him. Sturges too, seemed to sense it. He'd gone practically mute, which was rare for Sturges to achieve.

Althea was completely oblivious to the growing tension and suspicion. She was still so new to this life and it's dangers and seemed to genuinely want to help - the epitome of gullible in any other form and Mathis seemingly knew had told her already that the suit was a liability if nothing else - it was hardly stealth attire - but she refused to be parted from it. Probably because nothing else was comparable to it. The pre-war outfits all had 200 years of grime embedded into them, the raider outfits didn't cover a whole lot and the stuff that the wastelanders made was haphazard quality at best- so she stuck with the vault suit.

Now, it seemed almost a sound choice. The suits that Vault Tec had provided over 200 years ago seemed mildly waterproof and durable in the murky water and with a Rad-x, her radiation exposure would be negligible. Before Thea got into the water, she handed Garv her pip-boy and guns. With those in his hands - and he marvelled at the ease in which she simply handed them over to a goddamn raider - she popped one of the small red pills, spread out her arms and swan dived into the gouge that had been carved out of the Commonwealth 200 years previously. Ignoring just how cold it must have been when she broke the surface she made her way towards the closest stream of bubbles. With that piece of melodrama out of the way - Sturges pried open the maintenance hatch that led to the machine's guts and began to tinker with what he found. That left Garv with very little to do.

He spent half his time keeping an eye on the road and the other half watching Mathis. It wasn't lost on him that now would be the perfect time to attack the two raiders with their resident Vaultie busy and oblivious to what was happening on the surface. Garv wasn't about to be caught off-guard and made it clear with several pointed looks to the scavver that he was watching him.

'So what are two raiders doing with someone from out of a vault?' Mathis wondered as he and Sturges cajoled the machine back into life.

Garv continued to glare. The man was getting nothing out of him. He didn't like him - he didn't _trust_ him. Sturges too was being tight-lipped and feigned total interest in the pump.

'C'mon, I'm curious. Not every day you see one of _them_ roaming around. I could get quite a bit for an intact vault suit and pip-boy, y'know.'

Garv's glare increased ever so slightly. Was that an attempt at bribery? An offer to be their fence? Was he planning on doing something to Vaultie to render the suit and fancy computer owner-free? Garv wasn't about to let him try - they needed Vaultie and they had made a deal. He wasn't about to betray her for some shifty scavver.

'Where'd she come from?'

Garv didn't know, didn't care and wasn't about to tell him about the pre-war neighbourhood that Vaultie had taken them to. He tried to rationalize it as a potential safe-haven if something went wrong - after all, it seemed not that many people were aware of Sanctuary Hills; it seemed a perfect settlement and/or bolt-hole - but really, he wasn't about to desecrate a place that Vaultie seemed attached to. It wasn't right, even if the man was a scavver. If he was a raider in disguise - things could get ugly pretty damn fast and someone as nice and as innocently naive as Vaultie did not deserve that happening.

'Haven't you got a pump to fix?' Garv snarled which caused Mathis to raise his greasy hands and turn back to the machine. Over his head Garv and Sturges shared a look. Neither were comfortable with his line of questioning.

It was only moments later that Thea struggled up from the depths, dripping irradiated water everywhere. Her hair had gone from elegantly curled to almost straight and hung at her shoulders in clumps of rat-tails. The water had wiped most of her make-up off, but Garv couldn't help noticing that it did very little to change her face. It was still striking. Her shoes squelched as she marched back up to the machine and gasped 'I patched four spots.'

'That's great!' Sturges smiled. 'Cause I'm just about finished here.' He slammed the hatch shut with a final triumphant flourish. 'Just your simple seal breakdown, some fine-tuning and voila!'

Thea laughed at his "simple" explanation. 'You want to fire it up?' Mathis enquired with a raised eyebrow. 'Do the honours, hit the switch.' He offered.

Thea raised an eyebrow of her own and smiled ruefully. 'It's your project. Besides, I have to go get my stuff back.'

'Okay.' Mathis frowned as she turned on her heel and almost quick-marched back towards Garv. 'We need to talk.' She whispered.

The ex-Minuteman raised an eyebrow. 'Shoot.' He replied lowly.

'I don't think Mathis is who he says he is.' Thea fretted. 'I don't want to be wrong but-'

So she'd finally picked up on the wrongness, or had she found something else? Thankfully, the motor of the pump had loudly started up, easily masking their conversation from the two standing beside the industrial machine. 'What the hell're you talking about?' Garv growled lowly.

'When I went to get the scrap for the repairs - there was a computer on the desk.' She hissed lowly. 'I hacked it and I don't think this guy is who he says he is.'

'What did it say?' Garv demanded, his hands tightening on his beloved Laser Musket.

'It was talking about emptying the quarry to use as some sort of base. He said to us he was clearing it out for the valuables in the bottom. Why would he want a base?'

'I fucking knew it.' Garv snarled and went to get around her, already cranking a shot when they heard the tell-tale _poc-poc-poc_ of Mirelurks bursting from the mud.

' _Shit_ , we stirred something up good and proper, Garv!' Sturges shouted.

Just their luck.

'Grab your guns, Vaultie!' He yelled as he put his first shot into a mottled green shell. They would deal with Mathis eventually, but first they had to fend off the Mirelurks agitated by the pump.

* * *

A/N: It's Christmas eve tomorrow and I updated this puppy exactly a month ago - so we're due an update! I did mention that I would be taking on a few miscellaneous quests and to kick us off, I've started one of the first quests outside of the vault that I actually found as an exercise in more character building. I feel sorry for Garv, really. He doesn't ask for a do-gooder to start poking their collective noses into other people's business - it just happened.

 _Eifersu_ : Hey thanks for taking the time to review! I'm trying to keep it interesting.


	7. Ex Aequo Et Bono

**Chapter 7: Ex Aequo Et Bono**

 _Usually defined as "what is right and good." Used to describe the power of a judge or arbiter to consider only what is fair and good for the specific case, and not necessarily what the law may require._

'What the hell are Mirelurks? Giant crabs?!' Vaultie shrieked as she backed up hurriedly from the water with a look of terror. The creatures emerging from the water - disturbed by the pump - were heavily barnacled and smelled of rotting seaweed. You could barely see anything from under the shell bar the overlarge pincers that snapped in front of them but there was a hint of dark, glittering eyes.

Garv found it incredible that she was terrified of those things, considering the Deathclaw she'd taken down a day ago with barely a sweat. But she'd been in the power armour then, with a mini-gun to hand - and it had been just one Deathclaw. There were three or four huge Mirelurks bearing down on them. She had never seen Mirelurks before - and patently she wasn't a fan.

Mathis seemed quite handy with the small pipe-pistol he pulled from his jacket and had climbed up onto the generator itself, as though he were determined to protect it with his life. His hill to die on - _Literally_ if they couldn't destroy the Mirelurks. Garv and Sturges fled onto one of the large rocky protuberances of stone, kicking and shooting at the Mirelurks snapping at their heels.

Vaultie was being forced back and cornered by a stray Mirelurk. This one seemed to be limping very slightly and shuddering in a way the others didn't. Sick? Injured? Garv didn't care. All he cared about was protecting the next-to-useless Thea as her hastily cranked shots either bounced off it's protective shell or wildly missed their target and she skittered back another few steps, trying to stay out of the way of it's pincers. Despite there being obviously something wrong with it - this one seemed more violent and determined to get to her than the others.

Didn't she have the brains she was supposedly born with?! 'Get on the rock, Vaultie!' Garv yelled as he tried to get it's attention. He had a pervading sense of deja-vu he attributed to yesterday's Deathclaw incident.

Mathis meanwhile had noticed that Vaultie was in danger and had turned his attention to taking pot-shots in her direction. Garv wasn't about to put it down to poor shot that his bullets were straying closer to Thea than the Mirelurk trying to pin her.

'Shoot, what's that boy playing at?!' Sturges demanded as he attempted to keep their 'Lurk occupied. 'He's gonna hit 'er!'

Perhaps that was the plan. Their awkward and veiled conversation earlier on how much an intact vault-suit and Pipboy were worth floated across his mind's eye. Was he purposefully trying to wound her? Mirelurks were notorious for attacking virtually anything but would attack the weakest and easiest accessible target first. They would go after the smell of blood. With Thea the only one in reach and injured in any way, the Mirelurks would leave the others - and the generator - alone.

It was the mathematics of dreadful necessity all over again, but Garv was not going to do the math. She needed to help him. They still needed her - he'd promised to help her. What was more likely to kill their Vaultie first? Garv refocused his musket on another target and cranked the shot.

Mathis yelled out in pain as the energy blast hit him square in the shoulder, disabling his shooting arm. 'The fuck're you playing at?!' He yelled across the divide as his arm hung limply. Garv dropped the musket's sights and glared. He knew why.

With Mathis now disabled and the Mirelurks suddenly in a frenzy about where the smell of blood was coming from, Vaultie had enough of a chance to jump up onto a platform carved out of the rock and seemed to be fiddling with her Pipboy. Now? Of all times? 'What the hell is she doing?' Garv growled. 'She's meant to be shooting that thing!'

Sturges looked up from his gun and peered at their clueless-genius before he smiled suddenly. 'That thing has V.A.T.S?'

'What the hell is V.A.T.S?' Garv demanded accusingly.

'Watch!' The farm-boy answered which, normally, would have at least gotten him a slap upside the head for the obvious answer.

The Pip boy beeped and Garv could fancy he heard the whirring of the motors over the clicking and clacking of the Mirelurks as she held her arm aloft and repositioned her musket. Two, three, four shots straight into the Mirelurk's face. It reared back, screaming as more blood was shed from what looked to be it's face, but wasn't dead yet. In fact, it was angrier than ever before and swiped at her more than ever. Unperturbed, Vaultie loaded the Pipboy up again for another go around and sank two more into it's face. This time, it sank heavily and she booted it square in the face. So hard that the entire shell cracked from top to bottom and it almost fell apart as it hit the ground.

'The hell just happened?' Garv asked in the stunned seconds between the thing collapsing and the world coming back. 'She just - it -'

Sturges gave a breathless laugh. 'V.A.T.S! That thing can shoot the whiskers on a cat. Helps your aim too. Gitchur slimy butt back here!' He snarled and that was to the Mirelurk that had attempted to turn and go after the generator.

Garv grumbled very slightly to himself as he refocused on destroying the rest of the Mirelurks. It was practically cheating to have something that could help you aim but - he supposed - of all the people that needed it, it would be Vaultie. She needed all the help she could get.

They were putting shot after shot into them but at this point, they were just wasting ammo they couldn't afford to waste.

* * *

Althea Shapiro stood back, breathing hard but trying not to. The Mirelurk - whatever Garv had called it was dead but had already began giving off a foul smell that she could only liken to a filthy port on a warm summer's day. She fancied that she would never forget the alien look of it, or the smell, come to think of it. Not even in her nightmares.

The other Mirelurks had all turned and gone straight for the generator as Mathis swore black and blue, clutching his bleeding arm. Thea was angry at Garv for shooting him but it was an improvement over the last guy he'd shot in front of her. This one had been in the shoulder - before that he'd shot a man in the head. She was just bringing up her gun to help Mathis out when a flash of light caught her eye. Embedded in the carcass of the mutant crab was some sort of metal.

Was that what was causing it so much rage? Had it eaten something that had disagreed with it? She really didn't want to put her hands anywhere _near_ that thing's insides but her curiosity was getting the better of her. Holding her breath, she reached in and tried to grab it. It was metal, but slippery. The first attempt, it slid through her fingers almost as though it had been greased with butter - not bodily fluids of some kind. The second grab, she managed to get just enough of a hold on it to tease it out.

It was a shotgun. It looked high end, covered in blood as it was. Someone had scratched "Firecracker" into the stock with some painstaking effort. Was it the gun's name? It's former owner's name? She was wary of handling it but considered that it could do a lot more damage to the Mirelurks than their laser musket shots which seemed to bounce off the toughened shells. Surprisingly, it fit snugly in her shoulder, as though it had been made for a woman.

Althea had the foresight to check if it was actually loaded and was greeted by a clip of seemingly unharmed shotgun shells. Distantly, she was glad that she'd played it safe and hadn't tried to pull it out by the trigger guard - and that it had failed to catch anything on the way out of the Mirelurk. During her study for the bar she'd read a number of brutal closed murder cases and a few had featured crime scene photographs. She knew what damage a shotgun could do in close quarters.

Nate had warned her in what seemed like a lifetime ago that shotguns were serious business and kicked back hard - especially in the wrong stance. She hadn't understood just what he meant by that until she fired. The blast bowled her over and she swore as her elbow impacted painfully with rock.

The sound rolled and echoed around the bowl of the excavations, causing the Mirelurks to scatter briefly in a flurry of clicking and squeaking - but one was far louder than all the others. Against all odds, without her V.A.T.S - Althea had managed to hit one and it had been set on fire.

She suddenly understood why the word "Firecracker" had been carved. She lay, sprawled in the rock dust and watched it flail helplessly before the fire was extinguished. Mathis, Garv and Sturges were all watching her in surprised fascination as she scrambled to her feet and loaded another shell.

'Woah-shit!' Mathis yelled and ducked lower as she sent another spray into the trio. One fast reload later - she shot another, and then another until the smell of burning seaweed overtook everything else and the excavations were silent.

She was breathing hard again, more in an effort not to be sick - both at the smell and at the carnage Firecracker had wrought. Glistening green and red guts were spewed across a swathe of the platform the generator was on. Broken pieces of carapace were spinning where they had landed. She hated this place. Hated the animals and the people and the decay.

She hated that she'd dragged Garv and Sturges into this and she'd almost got them killed - almost got herself killed. Helped and saved a man who had almost shot her and had been shot in return. She could feel the tears burning the back of her eyes, desperate to fall but she wouldn't allow them. Nate would never have cried after something like this. Nate would have known what he'd been doing and wouldn't have fallen into this.

'Hey, good job. You got'em all, Vaultie.' She turned, tears still threatening to fall, towards Sturges who seemed to be treating her like she was going to break any minute judging by the tone of his voice and she just couldn't seem to find her voice to answer him. The deafening roar of Firecracker seemed to have stripped her of it.

Sturges gestured to her to hand over the gun but her fingers tightened on the stock ever so slightly and he raised his hands with a worried little smile. 'Hey, you keep it.'

She watched Garv jump down from his platform and march over to the generator where Mathis was cowering. With one rough yank, he dragged the pseudo-scavenger off the top and into the sludge left in the wake of Firecracker's roar. The second he let go of the jacket, his musket came up to point itself between the man's eyes. Mathis cowered, the good arm raised to protect his face as his useless arm tucked itself under his armpit.

Althea Shapiro was no soldier - That had been her husband. But she was a lawyer. A smart- competent lawyer and what she had at her disposal were words. They came roaring back with a vengeance - just like Firecracker. 'Garv! Don't!'

The raider with his finger on the trigger stiffened before demanding 'Are you serious, Vaultie? He tried to shoot you!'

'That doesn't mean you have to return the act in kind. Besides you already did!' She clambered down from the rock, still clutching Firecracker and being followed at somewhat of a safe distance by Sturges as she waved her free arm at Mathis. Blood was soaking his jacket and he was shivering violently in shock and fear.

'If I had "returned it in kind" he'd be dead.' Garv argued, his eyes and gun never wavered from the terrified man in front of him. 'Because that's what he was going to do to you, Vaultie. He just had shit aim.'

'But you don't.' She replied with a frown. 'I know you don't - you shot him in the shoulder, Garv.'

The raider looked angry for a second before he grunted 'I couldn't guarantee I'd get a headshot and if I missed, he'd have killed you.'

She felt oddly flattered that he wanted her alive so badly that he'd taken a less risky shot to avoid her getting hurt. She wanted to believe that there was good in Garv - needed to believe it in fact. If she didn't believe he was basically good, then she would never have struck a deal with him - murder of a gang leader aside. He seemed almost wasted as a raider.

Garv made to shoot again and Mathis reared back against the generator when Thea yelled 'Stop!' He dropped the gun from his shoulder and finally turned to snarl at her 'What about this is so hard? I am going to shoot him and save us a whole lot of problems. If you've got a problem with that - then I don't care.'

'I'm not going to let you shoot a man in cold blood in front of me - _again_.' Thea hissed. 'We have a deal.'

He stalked closer to her and leaned in close to her face. 'And if you remember, that deal hinged on murder. What's one more?'

She tried to get a semblance of personal space and stepped back but he wasn't going to let her go that easily. 'Garv-'

'You dragged us into this! So _congratulations_ Vaultie - it's your fault. I'm just fixing it.'

'You fucking-' She hissed as her cheeks darkened and her eyes crimped in anger.

Sturges groaned. 'Will you two stop bickerin' for two minutes? Y'all're acting like a bitter old married couple.'

'No we do not!' They both rounded on Sturges at the same time before going back to their staring contest.

'I don't see why we can't settle this with words. I'm the victim, shouldn't I get a say in the justice?' Thea tried being reasonable and using logic. It did very little to change Garv's stance.

'No. It doesn't work like that, Vaultie.' He snarled. 'This isn't before the war - this is the Commonwealth. If you didn't want this outcome - why did you even tell me about that terminal? Why did you even hack it?!'

'Uh…' Sturges began.

'Shut up Sturges. I want to hear this. Why didn't you just keep your nose out of other people's business?'

'If I had, you'd be dead.' She replied darkly.

'Garv.' Sturges tried to interrupt again insistently and the two turned on him.

'What, Sturges?' Garv finally growled.

'He's gone.' The handyman raider deadpanned.

Thea and Garv both turned to look behind the raider and at the empty space in front of the generator where Mathis had been dumped for his execution. There was a blood smear on the chipped yellow paint but no Mathis.

'Fucking-!' Garv threw his musket down and ran his hands over his stubble. 'You happy now, Vaultie?'

'Me?' She demanded. 'This is hardly my fault! I just wanted to help someone!'

'And this kind of shit is what happens!' He thundered. 'Now we've got more than just Jared to worry about! We _do not_ get involved in other people's problems!'

Thea fell silent. There was no point in arguing that she had no idea this would be the outcome - it was still her fault in Garv's mind. Nothing she had said or could say would change his mind, evidently. The wind tugged at her hair and blew the smell of dead Mirelurks and hot generator grease across the three.

'Let's just get the hell out of here before he finds friends.' Garv grunted and bent down to pick up his thrown rifle. Thea opened her mouth to say that if he had friends close by, then they would have intervened already but caught Sturges eye as he hastily shook his head. The universal sign to just drop any and all attempts to talk to him at present.

At least Sturges was still on her side.

* * *

A/N: I'm meant to be working on something else right now but the latter half of this chapter seized me and wouldn't let go. I was intending on doing this purely by Garv's point of view but no matter how I considered or looked at it, I couldn't get it right until I was forced to switch to Vaultie's perspective. Firecracker's first appearance! Woo! Ohkay now onto the plot. You may all be in uproar about how Preston isn't like that in the normal game, you may just enjoy the drama (in which case carry on). You may notice that Garv is not sweet and innocent like Preston is portrayed. You ever taken that man to Quincy? Oh he's up for murder and retribution alright. I just allowed Garv to express his feelings a bit more on the subject. And yes, he blames Thea for that mess. Wouldn't you? He's very much trying to help her but she's not exactly helping herself and that makes him mad. He's lost too many people to stupid decisions to let her make another one and get killed. Thanks to that fiasco, Mathis is now running around the Commonwealth spouting about Garv, Sturges and Vaultie to anyone who'll listen. Or maybe his boss. Or maybe Jared. But he'll be back. My canon-senses have finally stopped twitching now that at least part-canon has been restored with Mathis' escape. (although I really did murder Mathis on my first playthrough after I hacked his terminal.)

Thanks for all the follows, faves and reviews! I'm back and judging by the length of this chapter, better than ever!


	8. Erga Omnes: Part 1

**Chapter 8: Erga Omnis**

 _Towards all; Refers to rights or obligations that are owed towards all._

 _Part 1_

[Lexington]

Cities always gave Garv the creeps. He couldn't really say why, either. Maybe it was the faded old-world posters. Maybe it was the crumbling state of the buildings. Maybe it was because you couldn't rightly see what was coming. You could literally bump into trouble around the next corner and be none-the-wiser.

Lexington gave him a similarly eerie feeling. It was dead quiet in the nest of buildings but one simple noise could bounce off the walls and the faded posters, amplifying until you could never tell where it was coming from, it was simply all around you and Garv hated that - not knowing where to turn.

The walk down had been tense and quiet. Garv and Vaultie used Sturges as a buffer and avoided talking to each other unless necessary. Throughout the walk, Sturges had been increasingly attempting to get them to talk to each other, but his efforts were in vain. Garv wasn't about to be the first to apologise for their spat because he knew he'd been in the right. All along the road to Lexington he'd been waiting for an ambush - but none arrived. That didn't mean that there wasn't one coming and certainly didn't mean he was going to say sorry for attempting to kill someone who wouldn't have thought twice about killing her.

'What do you think?' Sturges asked as they sized up the massive buildings.

'I think if you're trying to make us talk, Sturges, that's not going to happen.' Garv replied as the man came up to stand beside his friend.

The handyman risked looking behind them to watch Vaultie try desperately to pry open an old, rusted Nuka-Cola dispenser, cursing all the while that it ate her money. 'She's new to this whole thing. Can't exactly blame her for reacting the way she did.' He commented in what Garv considered an unreasonable amount of reasonableness.

'She's got to learn that it's everyone for themselves in this place.' He brooded. 'That doesn't change.'

'Yeah, but she needs us, boss-man. Wouldn't last a day out there without us.'

That statement winged back to hit Garv where it hurt. Wasn't that long ago - a year or two, maybe? - that it had been said to him while he stood in the pouring rain, listening to the Colonel giving an ideological speech about saving Quincy and how they wouldn't last a day without the Minutemen - and he honestly believed it, back then. The politics had made it difficult sometimes, but he'd never stopped believing that what the Minutemen were doing was right - until Quincy. After that, ideology and morals were forced to be shelved in favour of survival. Garv learned fast - he wanted Vaultie to learn too. Mistakes, mercy - they had consequences.

There was the sound of smashing glass and both men turned to look back at Vaultie who was cleaning out shards of glass and rooting around inside the machine. She eventually pulled out a miraculously unscathed Nuka Cherry and smiled.

They looked back at each other and Sturges waggled an eyebrow. 'We are clearing out Corvega, then we're going back to Libertalia.' Garv warned him. 'Without Vaultie.'

'You saying you're gonna kill her?' Sturges asked in surprise. They knew other raiders sometimes did it. Sometimes conspired to get rid of the third wheel in the plans - especially when it came to Caps.

'No.' Garv replied and began a march towards a large, squat building. 'I wouldn't waste the ammo.'

The streets of Lexington were mostly silent and abandoned. Jared and his group were only ever interested in Corvega and only ever protected the plant. They left the streets to the ferals. Super Duper Mart would have been Garv's ideal staging point before the actual attack on Corvega that had gone horribly wrong. It had resources and - more importantly - it had been close by the plant itself. Unfortunately, there were far too many ferals to justify it and they had chosen somewhere else. Now, however, he was counting on there being some goodies - food, medical supplies, ammo - to help them.

'I used to shop here.' Thea murmured as Garv nosed open the rusted doors with his musket. 'It's gone downhill.' She commented quietly. Garv ignored the joke as Sturges chuckled nervously.

The air tasted dry and dusty. Like an old room that hadn't been aired in years and left to moulder in it's own time-capsule. A throwback to history. At first glance, the main floor seemed empty of everything but delinquent shopping trolleys and battered cans of Cram. The posters littered around the room had been torn - presumably by the skeletons left lying in the aisles like some gruesome halloween decorations.

Vaultie reached out to touch one of the old skulls but Sturges grabbed her arm. 'Wouldn't touch that if I were you.' He warned.

'Why not?' She argued.

'Darlin' it's disrespectful.' He answered. 'And those bodies are probably only held together with dust. You want to know how much noise a skull makes when it hits the ground? Plenty to ferals.'

'They're just lying here.' She whispered. 'Why hasn't anyone buried them?'

'Too many bodies and no-one to remember them.' Sturges answered, unusually sombre.

Only more bodies get added to the pile. Garv knew this as much as anyone else. 'We're going to head for the stockroom.' He ordered. 'Ammo and medical supplies first, food second.' He didn't honestly hold out too much hope that the front of the shop would hold anything spectacular. It was probably one of the first to be raided. The back however - He surmised that the dark and enclosed storage room and offices would hold the best stuff and the ferals. Ferals loved dark and enclosed. Nobody had ever figured out why.

The last time he'd been anywhere near here it had looked far too cramped for his tastes - with a team of nine people - but three might be able to manage it if they were careful not to rile the ghouls.

Sturges and Thea nodded. She pulled the shiny new toy off her back and slowly began follow him down the aisles towards a pair of battered doors with a chipped metal plate that read _Delicatessen._

He heard her whispering to Sturges 'What are ferals?' Her lack of knowledge was astounding.

'Feral Ghouls. They're poor irradiated bastards that were unlucky enough not to die outright.' He explained gently. 'Normal ghouls - well they're all there in the brain if you get me. Almost normal. Just real damn unlucky. Ferals - radiation's sent 'em good and nuts. They'll attack anything - anyone - that makes the slightest noise. Last we were in here, it was full to the brim. I think Garv wants to try and be sneaky. So hush.'

She nodded in understanding, her fingers wrapped tightly around the pump action grip. The questions, thankfully, stopped there.

It was eerily quiet now. He didn't like that. The shelves had mostly been cleared - especially anything to do with medical supplies and ammo. A few products had survived the onslaught but nothing worth picking over. Garv contented himself that he'd made the right call. The good stuff would always be hidden away. Stood to reason - and with the feral problem here pretty evidential, it would be unlikely that anyone stuck around long enough to try a run at the stockroom.

They were just creeping up on the counters and the double doors when a sound caught his ear. It sounded like squeaking wheels. His head turned sharply, his breath still when he heard the crash of a trolley into an old metal shelving unit. Vaultie had paused, cringing. She'd obviously nudged it, it had limped straight into a display and made one hell of a felt the anger bubbling up but shouting might have attracted more attention than the trolley had at this point. All three were holding their breath, waiting.

Garv strained his ears, trying to tune out Vaultie's whispered, hurried apologies and focus on that warning noise - the hissing. Ferals may have had their brains fried by radiation but they still had enough to follow a set pattern. Noise would rouse them, they would search and when they'd located something to attack, they hissed to draw the others - like a pack of dumb but persistent dogs.

A few seconds ticked by. Ten, twenty - maybe they'd gotten away with it.

To Garv's everlasting horror, a hand appeared and slammed down on a counter not too far away as a feral reared up. It smelled even worse than it looked. Not quite as bad as the sewer Deathclaw had smelled, but a powerful stink of decay, rot, and filth.

'Oh shit, is _that_ a feral?!' Vaultie gasped causing the moment of surprise to pass. The feral reacted by hissing loudly and several answering cries were given from behind them.

Garv reacted by smacking it in the mouth and bringing the musket up to shoot. He answered with 'Imma kill you if the ferals don't first, Vaultie!' The shout echoed around the room, eliciting more fierce hissing from behind them.

It was blocking the doors, trying to reach over and grab him, despite the deep cuts in it's face and neck. Garv cranked a shot and put it down. He jumped as he heard the boom of Firecracker and smelled the burning flesh - evidently more were coming in from behind them - but was prepared to ignore it for now, as long as she didn't hit him or Sturges. With the feral dead, he leapt towards the door. Locked. Of course it was.

He rummaged for any bobby pins he had on him and attacked the lock as more shots were going off over his head. It was hardly ideal - he needed to _concentrate_ for Atom's sake -

'The ferals really don't like Firecracker!' Vaultie yelled above the shots.

'Good for you!' Garv snarled back as he wrestled with the 200 year old lock. It was being stubborn. 'Keep them off me!'

'I would but - uh - I'm running out of shotgun shells!' She replied like someone delivering some potentially bad news.

Fantastic. He needed to get the door open that much quicker. Thank Atom that Vaultie didn't need to be a particularly good shot with that shotgun. Anything that wasn't close enough to take a powerful shredding hit and die immediately was set on fire and finished off by the flames. Come on - come on -

The lock yielded.

Swift as he could, he wrenched open one of the doors and yelled 'Sturges! In!'

The handyman pulled his musket up sharply and fell back, leaving Vaultie to control the stragglers. Garv pulled around his own musket and began firing. 'Vaultie! Get in the damn door, now!'

She looked like she was about to argue but turned and jumped the counter before running into the relative safety of the gloom beyond. He slid back into the doorway, firing as he went before he could slam and lock the door again.

The three stood and breathed for a bit, listening to the ferals slam themselves again and again into the wood.

'Boss-man, before you lose your rag-' Sturges breathed.

'Can nothing go fucking right for once?!' He cut Sturges off with a snarl.

'Apparently not.' Vaultie replied as she checked her clip of shotgun ammo.

'I wasn't talking to you!' Garv snapped. 'I don't need an inexperienced newbie try to kill me before I get to Corvega! That's twice now! If this is how it's gonna be - maybe we should call off this whole deal. Why don't you run on back to your vault? Huh?'

'I would!' She agreed angrily. 'But they're all dead you giant jerk-off!'

That made Garv shut his mouth. He hadn't known they were dead - she hadn't gotten further than _pre-war_ and _looking for her son_ when they were trapped in Concord. How was he supposed to know that everyone else in that vault was dead?

Vaultie's back hit the filthy crumbling wall and she looked a decade older than she did the previous day at that exact moment. 'They're all dead. Everyone but my son. Is that what you want to hear?' She murmured. 'Someone killed my husband and everyone else in there and then stole my son.' Garv winced at the mention of husband. She'd never mentioned a husband either. He had never asked what happened in there - to ask now would be just a bigger fuck up. An awkward silence had fallen, interspaced by the loud thumps and scratches on the door.

'Maybe we should move.' Sturges suggested in the awkwardness. Garv immediately seized the opportunity, rather than watch Vaultie's face crumble some more.

'Yeah.' He agreed and stalked off up the left corridor.

* * *

A/N: This chapter was so large I had to break it down into two manageable chunks. I didn't think my readers would enjoy a 4,000 word or so novella for one chapter. Who knows, maybe you do, but I know I myself can barely hold on that long sometimes. Vaultie's genius plan to get Garv killed continues! Or at least - Garv thinks so. Methinks he puts too much on the lady's shoulders too soon. That bit him right in the ass, didn't it?


	9. Erga Omnes: Part 2

Part 2

Garv was slightly mollified that his instinctive leap to skip right past the shelves at the front had proven right. The back storage rooms were far better off for ammo, medical supplies and food than he'd hoped. There were more ferals hiding in the shelves of boxes and the cramped conditions weren't ideal, but they needed everything they could carry to help them plan this attack on Jared.

He still felt a heel whenever he looked towards Vaultie, but he wasn't about to back down on their earlier argument whatsoever. He was stubborn, Garv knew that. What he didn't anticipate was an equal stubbornness in their intellectual little friend. The three took a quick and unusually quiet poke around the kitchen but failed to turn up anything exciting. Outside, the ferals persisted at the door, still hissing. The door had several serious dents in it now, but it still looked strong.

They moved further into the stockroom. It looked the same as the rest of the building - damaged. But still mostly intact. A quick survey of the room turned up some finds but what the two raiders and Vaultie didn't expect was probably the least threatening thing in the entire building as they explored the room beyond the box-lined corridor. A dead body slumped against a steamer trunk.

Garv swore heavily and turned away from the sight as fast as he could, which confused Vaultie immensely. 'You know him?' She asked.

'Knew. I knew him.' The raider cursed again and ran a hand down his face. 'His name was Josh.' He stood still for a second before he marched off back through the storage rooms and back to the kitchen they'd left, ignoring Vaultie's look of surprise and Sturges' squirming uncomfortableness. He could hear the ferals hissing and reacting to his presence on the other side of the old kitchen equipment. They couldn't get to him without tearing a hole in the wall or breaking through the doors and both were hardly quiet activities.

Garv hadn't known Josh as well as some others had before Quincy, but he knew Josh had the dubious honour of having the strangest/worst luck in the entire infantry of Minutemen. One of those people who could only accidentally find things by literally stumbling into them, or tripping over and falling into it - or once, walking into a hunter's trap and ending up upside down, staring at it. It looked like this time his capricious luck had really bitten him in the ass. But why? Why had he even come here? Surely he must have been aware of the ghouls, aware of their neighbours - Jared and his pack. Why come here alone?

….Had he been alone?

The body looked somewhat fresh which meant that he'd managed to survive for a year or so before meeting his end. Garv was almost thankful for that.

Seeing the outfit, the hat, the logo on his jacket had brought back a flood of conflicting emotion - the biggest of which was anger. He'd been living his life for the last year in numbness compared to the rage and grief lashing against his ribcage. Just like Vaultie, he had buried the emotion of the world as he knew it imploding as deep into himself as he could. A tendril of that was now creeping back in when he least wanted it to.

He snapped out of it long enough to listen to the long hissing and shuffling of the ferals in front of the double doors and the kitchen - as though they were workers lined up for breakfast in the old world.

'Dammit.' He growled.

The ferals hissed in the wake of the sound and reared forward to try and reach him, but the opening was small and the other bodies got in the way. They couldn't reach him just yet. The doors were looking more and more dented though, long deep gashes in the metal. He thought of sinking a couple of rounds into them - for Josh, at the very least - but they had a smarter and more protected target to kill and fusion cells were hard to come across as it was. Maybe one day he'd come back and finish off the lot of them - if he lived that long.

Instead of heading left, back into the storage and confronting the body all over again, Garv started exploring right and immediately hit upon the offices.

The desks lined the floor, their busted computers gathered dust. Someone some time previously had trapped a teddy in an upturned bin and just to make doubly sure that it couldn't escape - had handcuffed the two bear paws.

He shook his head to himself - if he didn't know any better he'd have sworn Sturges had done it. It didn't do much for his humour, but it did ground him to the here and now, not what could have been or what went wrong.

Josh would not be alone. He knew that much. Minuteman or civilian - Garv was prepared to find more bodies.

'Garv? You okay?' Sturges appeared at the door with a worried looking Vaultie trying to act nonchalant behind him. She was good at keeping her face neutral, he'd give her that, but she was tense trying to act relaxed.

'Yeah.' He sighed. 'I'm fine.'

'There's some stairs a little ways behind us. Reckon there might be another fusion core down there?' Sturges offered in the awkwardness.

Garv reckoned there would be more ghouls. Nevertheless, they had to cover the entire building - just to make sure nothing else crept up on them. Finding his centre was easier, now he'd taken a moment to himself. He could focus rather than have the guilt and betrayal compounded.

The generator room was covered in a layer of oil. A rainbow of colours merged across the floor around them as they stepped through the puddles. 'Whatever you do,' Garv warned with a growl. 'Don't fire a single shot in here. I mean it. We'll all go up.'

Sturges and Vaultie nodded quickly. Garv had seen what loose oil on a floor could do to a group plenty of times before. He'd even employed the method once or twice - but you'd have to be seriously backed into a corner to even consider something as uncontrollable as fire.

The basement wasn't actually a basement - it was a car park turned loading bay. Several rusted and practically destroyed cars were laid where they had been parked for the last 200 years but that wasn't what had immediately filled the universe. The bullet ricocheting off the concrete beside his head was.

All three immediately turned left and dived behind a rusted old truck as someone cursed from the gloom and reloaded.

'Don't shoot!' Vaultie yelled over the truck. 'We're friendly!'

'You're raiders!' Came an angry reply. Whomever had answered was female and angry which, presumably would equate to her being the shooter.

'We thought this place was empty!' Sturges agreed.

'Well it's not!' The shrill, nettled voice countered. Another bullet pinged off the rusted framework for good measure, sending flakes of the car flying. Somewhere above them, there was a crash. The hissing ferals seemed to be getting louder.

'Shee-ite. They've broken down the doors.' Sturges whispered.

He really didn't think he'd stirred them up that badly. There must have been dozens up there. That, in itself, was bad. Being pinned down by some irate woman shooting at them only complicated the problem.

They needed a way out of here that did not include going through a hoarde of feral ghouls or getting shot in the ass. Garv raised his head ever so slightly over the bed of the truck and glanced around. There - there was a terminal by the rolling doors. Presumably, it controlled them. It could be an escape.

As much as he hated the idea of it, they did need Vaultie right at this minute. 'Do you think you can hack that terminal?' He demanded and turned to her. He almost expected a sassy and chilly _"Oh so now you need me?"_ but it never came. She seemed to fully grasp the situation as wordlessly as Garv had.

'I...I don't know. I think so. They shouldn't have very good firewalls. It's just a supermarket - but I won't be able to do it if people are shooting at me!' She warned him with a worried look. It was another look he'd seen in the past in various guises. Her eyes were screaming _"Please tell me you have a plan to get us out of here alive"_.

There seemed to be a whispered conversation on the other side of the room as well. Evidently, the shooter wasn't alone and they too had heard the sounds of the ferals. 'We can't just stay trapped in here, this is ridiculous! Somebody needs to do something.'

'The Sight says we should trust them.'

'I don't care what drugs tell you to do you crazy old bat, they're raiders!'

'They're not just anybody. These people are special.'

'Please, please Marcy, I don't want to die here -'

'Jun, shut up!'

The voices were familiar to him, but he couldn't remember where he'd heard them before. Sturges, however, seemed suddenly excited. 'Marcy? Jun? It's ol' Sturges!' Another shot pinged off the framework and the ferals hissing began to get closer. 'Damn, woman! Stop shooting at me!'

'I don't care who you claim to be, you're a raider!'

'Marcy be smart about this! You can't take on all those ferals by yourself! I know what happened to Josh!' Sturges begged. 'I don't want to die here, and I know you don't either. We have a way out!'

'Oh yeah?' Came the sarcastic reply. 'Why should I believe a raider?!'

'Marcy-' Jun begged.

Garv turned to look up at the stairs. Oil was dripping steadily, soaking into the porous concrete. Shadows were dancing on the wall. The ferals were almost on top of them. The group were going to have to move - soon. 'Because if you don't -' Garv yelled 'You'll die. We can get the terminal to open the doors, you've just got to trust us.'

There was a derisive snort from the gloom followed by a cracked and old sounding 'Trust them.'

'Vaultie,' Garv murmured. 'Get ready to hit up that terminal.'

'But -' She replied warily.

'I got this.' He replied and aimed towards the stairs. The shot ignited the oil and raced up the stairs towards the ghouls. There was no going back that way. 'Go, Vaultie!' He yelled.

She leapt over the truck and scrambled towards the terminal as the smell of burning ferals and smoke rolled across the ceiling. Garv was watching the stairs, waiting for the first burning feral to tumble down into his sightline. The smoke was getting thicker - but Garv noted with some concern that the oil was not infinite. It was burning up, fast.

'What are they doing? Why can't I just shoot-' Came an argument from the other side of the room. Garv grit his teeth as he kept one eye on Vaultie, just in case the aforementioned Marcy decided to take a shot at her - and the other eye on the stairs.

Feet were appearing in the fire. Lots of feet. They were panicking and bumping into each other as the fire caused pain. If he hadn't seen himself what ferals could do in large numbers and if he had some sort of morality left, he may have even felt sorry for them. However, he hadn't survived this long to get sentimental. 'Vaultie!' He yelled.

'Got it!' She returned just as the huge roller shutters began to jerk into life. The oil fizzled out on the ground, and the ferals were really pouring into the stairwell now. Many of them on fire and setting others that had escaped the ignition on fire as they crashed into each other. The second the shutters looked big enough to roll under he yelled 'Last chance! Go!' And pushed Sturges out into the open.

Vaultie was already nipping into the light pouring in and the arguing group seemed to make up their minds, bolting for the second set of shutters as Garv ducked out into the light.

The light outside was bright compared to the loading bay. Garv blinked as he slowly adjusted. 'Close the shutters, Vaultie!' He ordered as the smell of burning flesh and rags leeched out into the fresh air and sunshine. The sound of the shutters paused for a second before the old, rusted gears screeched back into life and began to close their escape point again. Garv kept his musket on the opening beside Vaultie, who had yet to move away from the terminal.

He let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding when the metal shutters finally settled and turned to the new problem - the other group.

They too, were a trio. Two women and a man who looked like most life had been knocked out of him. Dressed in settler clothes. Sturges seemed to know them and in the daylight of the wasteland - they did look familiar.

'Marcy-' Sturges tried.

'Don't even talk to me, raider scum!' the woman in the chequered shirt growled, her gun held firmly at them. 'We're just going to go our own way. Try and stop us and I'll put a bullet in you.'

'Marcy, c'mon. It's Sturges. How long're you gonna last out there, huh? Where're you gonna go?' The handyman raider pleaded, his hands raised.

Marcy Long scowled. 'I don't know, but anywhere's better than this-'

'Sanctuary.' The older woman announced abruptly and Garv heard the intake of breath from Vaultie. How had she heard that name? Or had she meant sanctuary as in any kind of sanctuary? 'You know what I mean, kid. Don't you?' The old woman smiled knowingly.

Eyes turned to the paling Vaultie. 'How do you know about that?' She asked quietly.

'The Sight tells me things, kid. I saw you leaving that awful vault. I know what kind of pain you're hiding and the good heart you have. Dogmeat found a good one in you.'

Dogmeat? The - _the Red Rocket dog?!_

'We're not going anywhere raiders recommend!' Marcy snapped.

Sturges interjected again. 'Marcy, you look like hell - Jun looks even worse. Let us help. Nobody knows about that place but us three. I'm sure Vaultie would love some help up there, wouldn't you?' His smile was strained as he desperately tried to convince them to accept the offer and dragged Vaultie in on it.

'Yeah.' She chipped in. 'It's a big place for just me…'

'And what makes you think we'd trust her over you? Huh? What's a stupid Vault Dweller going to do when we're attacked?'

More than you'd think, Garv admitted quietly to himself.

'Have you got anything better?' Sturges asked. 'We can walk you back up there.'

Now Garv threw him an incredulous hold-the-fuck-on look. 'We're meant to be scoping out Corvega!' He hissed. 'Not escorting nutty settlers anywhere.'

Marcy Long sneered at his insult. 'We don't need them!'

'Marcy,' Sturges tried again, practically pleading with her now. 'There's ferals all over. You're not looking so good. Come with us back to Sanctuary. You got a better plan?'

For the first time since they'd entered Lexington, a sullen silence fell. Marcy seemed to be accepting the wisdom of Sturges' points - even if she didn't like them. She turned and began a huddle with Jun, speaking in another language - rapid fire and too fast to get even an inflection from.

Garv turned on Sturges and grabbed him by the ear to hiss 'What is wrong with you? We're meant to be scouting out Corvega!'

'We were gonna look around to see what's changed, boss-man and not a lot will have!' Sturges defended. 'Besides, the plan was always to head back to Sanctuary and get geared up for a fight - what's different about taking a few extra people with us?'

'Everything.' Garv hissed. 'Every damn thing! We'll be easier to spot sneaking out of here for one! How are we even meant to test the defenses with three extra- what?!' He demanded at seeing the old woman approaching the arguing pair.

'You know there's a secret way into there - right?' She questioned. 'The Sight knows.'

'And I'm a sugarplum Deathclaw, Grandma.' Garv replied sarcastically.

Sturges threw the old woman a sorrowful look. 'I'm sorry Mama Murphy, man's got no manners.'

Say what, now? Garv stared at Sturges in slack-jawed awe. The handyman had always been on his side - he'd never answered back as far as Garv could remember. He went with the flow. Now he was sticking up for the old woman?

'Garv, this here's the woman that warned Quincy that Gunners were on the way in the first place.' Sturges sighed. 'If she says that there's a secret way in - I believe 'er.'

Since when did Sturges - Handyman, mechanic, motor genius and the most rational man on the planet Sturges - ever believe in psychic powers? Especially that of an old woman who may or may not be off her face on Chems at the minute.

'Trust me, boss man.' Sturges implored.

Something inside Garv snapped, but it snapped damply. 'You know what? Fine. Fine! This was a shit-show from start to finish anyway.' He pinched the bridge of his nose. First Vaultie dragged them into a mess at Thicket Excavations and nearly got them killed, then she set off a pack of feral ghouls that almost killed them - twice! - Garv got shot at among many things and now Sturges and Vaultie want to play _settlers_. Why did he ever think it was a good idea to have her tagging along? At all?

Garv did not like the fact Vaultie seemed to have such sway over Sturges. He did not like her busy-body attitude. He had a distinct feeling that she was going to get herself killed which - depending on when it happened - would or would not solve at least half his problems.

The huddle of Marcy and Jun Long broke apart and Marcy long glared at the two raiders. 'I don't like it but - if this Sanctuary is as good as you say it is, we're in. If you're lying, I'll put a bullet in your heads.'

'It's real, Marcy.' Sturges smiled brightly.

And Garv would love to see her try putting a bullet in his head. It was a lot harder than you'd think. He hadn't spent the whole last year doing absolutely nothing. But - he resigned himself to the fact they were heading back with three extra people and no scouting done.

He watched Vaultie take her hard earned Nuka Cherry and hand it to Jun Long, probably hoping to turn that sagging grimace upside down. He took it, didn't even thank her and threw it back, gulping until it was gone - much to her shock.

Garv probably shouldn't have had a deep and savage feeling of smugness at the fact that once again, her offer of help had been taken - not just taken, but seized - without even a thank you and she seemed uncomfortably perturbed by that. It wasn't a very large victory in the grand scheme of things - but it made Garv pettily amused by the way she'd give an inch and they'd take a mile. Just like Mathis. He didn't get the same feeling from these wasters as he did from Mathis. They weren't that dangerous.

That didn't mean, however, that he was happy to escort them back. Even though they were heading the same way. That woman had _shot at him_ for Atom's sake.

It was going to be an even more fun walk back than it had been walking here. He could tell.

* * *

A/N: Okay so, uh, this got big. Like bigger than I was expecting but it was hard to convincingly write Marcy Long agreeing to anything where raiders were involved. She hates raiders like Preston hates Gunners. It's scary. And I was advised to keep the Josh thing in. B'cuz reasons. Anyway I hope you enjoy the conclusion to the Super Duper Mart fiasco!


	10. Cadit quaestio

**Chapter 9: Cadit quaestio**

 _The Question Falls ; Implies that a settlement to a dispute or issue has been reached and the issue is now resolved._

Sanctuary Hills was hardly ideal for a settlement in terms of defense - the whole place was on a hill and while that may seem like an advantage - it just meant that they stuck out like a sore thumb in the landscape and no matter how hard you could try, you couldn't always barricade everywhere - Garv knew firsthand that there was always a weakness somewhere to be exploited.

Then there was what happened if they came to the attention of somebody - anybody really. Garv had promised to leave Vaultie's little home alone - he never made a promise to help her defend it against other raiders. Lexington was too far away - a day's walk, at least - to really be of any assistance, anyway.

However that was not his problem. None of this was his problem. It was a shining beacon of truth that he had to hang onto right now as he watched Vaultie show her new "friends" around the place. They did not seem enthused by what they found.

It had been a long, awkward walk back - though at least the Mr Handy, Codsworth, hadn't threatened their new "settlers" like he had Garv and Sturges. He seemed to be warming up to the fact that people were starting to come through the area again. People who didn't attack on sight. Vaultie had also demanded they stop to pick up the dog, claiming it wasn't safe for it all alone at Red Rocket - which annoyed everyone involved bar Mama Murphy and Sturges. The old lady greeted it like an old friend and likewise - the dog seemed keen on her. The Mr Handy had also exclaimed about the charms of the dog. It seemed that the mutt was there to stay and had happily trotted away to - what Garv assumed - sniff and pee up broken walls. Garv refocused on Vaultie's little show of what was left.

'You can have any house you want.' Vaultie offered gallantly as the three arrived back in front of Garv.

'Okay. That one.' Marcy pointed to the one lit by glittering candles and seemingly in better condition. That was Vaultie's house, Garv knew.

'Uh, no. No. I'm sorry that's - that's my house. You can't have it.' Vaultie defended.

Marcy Long snorted. 'So you get the best house on the block? Why do you deserve it?' She demanded in tones that made Garv want to shoot her. It was just another example of why you should never give an inch in the Commonwealth but Vaultie surprised him with her curt and stoutly unmoveable answer.

'It's my block and my house.'

The two stared at each other for some time and Garv was sure that if someone got between them, they'd be laser-dust before you could blink. Evidently, Marcy lost and looked away to Jun with an unhappy scowl on her face. 'This place is a wreck, anyway.'

'If you don't like what I'm offering, you're free to leave.' Vaultie replied. 'I'm willing to put in the work myself.'

Marcy seemed as surprised as Garv was at that answer. It seemed that when push came to shove and it was something she clearly cared about - Vaultie would choose to push back. 'I wasn't saying that - I was saying that it's going to take an awful lot of work - and for what, huh?'

'Lets start with a free roof over your head.' Vaultie replied. 'I'm being generous when I don't really have any need to be.' Marcy Long grumbled but Garv knew that realistically, she was getting a good deal.

Marcy and Jun descended once again into the rapid fire language of theirs as they seemed to discuss whether staying was a good idea. He wasn't sure who was taking what stance, or who was winning. Nor did he particularly care. Garv left their new guests to it and instead went to find Sturges and the old lady. Vaultie was following him, but he hardly cared. He already knew she wasn't going to shoot him in the back, wasn't the type. Maybe she intended to apologise or restart their argument, he wasn't going to give her the opportunity to do either and stepped up his pace.

He found them in the house across the street where the two raiders had spent an uncomfortable night's sleep. He stalled at the door. They seemed to be deep in conversation and Garv was hesitant to butt into it unless something pressing occurred. Somehow, Mama Murphy had found an intact old armchair in the most hideous shade of green Garv had personally ever seen - which was probably why it had been left mostly intact. She seemed to like it.

'Sturges, I warned you long ago what would happen. Just like I warned Jared.' Her voice was weary and tired.

'I know, Mama Murphy. We can't all avoid our fate. We tried though. We tried.' Sturges replied.

Garv leaned against the outside of the door and listened, aware that this probably wasn't meant for his ears.

'You know as well as I do, she needs all the help she can get.' She? Garv speared the Vault Dweller who had followed him and positioned herself on the other side of the door with a look but she looked just as confused as he did. 'It's not gonna get any easier, you know.' The old woman added with a cracked sort of sigh. 'I've seen it.'

'Seen what?' Sturges pressed. 'Mama Murphy, we've been through so much already.'

From his perch, Garv watched Mama Murphy give the raider a sad sort of smile. 'You know that whatever I see is always cryptic.'

'We need you to tell us more about this secret entrance.' Sturges pressed. 'Please, Mama Murphy, we need everything we can get.' He pleaded and Garv squirmed up against the door. It was true that they needed help, and he hated it. The thought of relying on someone like her - without any sort of proof, either, was laughable. Nobody could see the future.

'You know to do that, The Sight needs help.'

'What kind of help?' Vaultie asked and stepped into the room, breaking the spell. Sturges whipped around, gun in hand but paused upon seeing the trademark blue and yellow suit. He seemed almost apologetic about the fact he could have and almost had shot her.

The handyman-raider laughed nervously and put the pistol away. 'Sorry, reflexes. I don't like bein' snuck up on.'

Well, that was out there. Garv stepped into the room himself and nodded to Sturges who frowned at him, knowing he'd been eavesdropping but nodded back universally understanding him before he turned his attention to the old lady. 'What do we need for this thing to work?' Sturges said.

'I need Jet.'

Vaultie looked confused. 'What's Jet?'

'It's this little red inhaler that you get. Chems.' Garv informed her, disapprovingly. 'It'll rot your brains.' He warned. 'I didn't save you just for you to die on me.' He speared the old lady with a frown.

'Stop fussin'.' Mama Murphy griped. 'I'm an old woman. I lived this long.'

'Not much longer if you take that shit.'

'That's the deal.' Mama Murphy smiled and winked at Vaultie. 'Don't try any lawyering on me, now. I'm not as easy as some of your clients.'

Garv frowned. None of them had told her that Vaultie was a lawyer, he was damn sure of it so how had she known?

'A little red inhaler.' Vaultie mused and something in her voice made Garv think she was trying to remember something. 'Comes in a little yellow box splattered in paint? Or at least - I hope it's paint?'

'Sometimes.' Garv agreed. 'Why?' He asked in suspicion.

'I think I have some.' She said. 'It was in a safe in one of the other houses. This little orange box. So I pried it open and there were these little red inhalers in there.'

Garv wasn't sure whether to question just how paranoid you've got to be to store your shit in a locked box in a locked safe or rage that they honestly couldn't be talking about giving a little old lady something that - quite possibly - she'd have a heart attack on. He wasn't digging a goddamn grave tonight.

'Get me some Jet and we'll see what The Sight wants to show us.' Mama Murphy smiled.

Ten minutes later, Vaultie was ransacking her house looking for the little yellow box that held the stash of chems she'd found. Garv hadn't paid much attention the last time he was in her house - mostly it had been spent arguing about how it was damn foolish to stay here - but now he took the time to look around. There hadn't been much to salvage, but anything even remotely worth it had been saved. A small book had been placed on the shelves beside the front door, surrounded by candles. It would be the first thing anyone walking in saw and the last thing as they left. Maybe it was intentionally set up that way. Garv struggled to read the bloated cardboard but eventually managed to see the title. It was a colourful little book faded slightly by time - something a child might read: _You're Special!_

There was also a chipped and watermarked glass on the kitchen island beside a bottle of something dark. The peeling, faded words on the bottle said "Beantown Brewery's Finest Whiskey!". Beside those was a bright yellow holotape and a photo. He angled his head slightly to get a look without alerting the woman with her head stuffed in a cupboard.

It was Vaultie, some unknown man and a baby at the seaside. It was faded, slightly torn, but it must have been protected to survive all these years. Possibly trapped under a piece of furniture - or was preserved in the vault?

'So this vault -' Garv leaned against the grimy kitchen bench and pierced her with a stare. 'What happened?'

She jolted, her upper half struck the top of the cupboard with a bang and she pulled her head out, cursing. One hand went to the impact spot, the other grabbed the bench to drag herself up. She glanced, puzzled at him and then down at the sad little collection on the counter-top.

Vaultie grimaced as though she'd put two and to together and then pulled the glass towards her, filling up a good slug of dark liquid.

He watched her tip back her drink and grimace as it burned down her throat. 'I thought you didn't want to know.' She bit grimly, staring at the watermarked glass in her hand.

'Well now I do. You told us you were 200 years old. You were looking for your son - and you had a husband.' They were meant to be looking for chems, but anything to postpone letting an old lady kill herself. The remarks that Mama murphy had given about their Vaultie were cryptic, Garv found himself curious for the first time in a while. Might as well get the story while they looked.

'Had is a relatively new term for me to deal with.' She grimaced. 'I don't even know how long he's been dead. How long I sat there, staring at his corpse.' She was sliding into morose as the whiskey kicked in. He wanted to take the stuff off her, but he knew that sometimes you needed a crutch to talk about some things.

'Vaultie.' Garv warned as he reached out for a spotted, watermarked glass of his own and poured himself a shot of whiskey.

'When the bombs went off Nate - my husband - and I grabbed our son and ran to the vault. They told us they were just going to "depressurise" us in these huge machines. He had Shaun. When we climbed in though - it was like a light going off. Like falling asleep. But when I woke up all the vault people were gone and there's people - different people - in front of the pod I was in. But they weren't interested in me - they opened Nate's pod as I banged and banged on the door and when he wouldn't hand over Shaun….they shot him.' She poured another slug of whiskey and threw it back with a grimace. 'And then I could feel myself….slipping back. Watched helplessly as they took my baby. The next time I woke up the door actually opened - I thought they'd come back for me but I was alone - and my husband was dead.'

It was a hell of a story.

For a minute or two, Vaultie just stood there, this stunned look of sadness on her face. Was this the first time she had ever talked about the events leading up to her finding them in Concord? It probably was. She shook herself, as though trying to rid herself of a bad dream and dropped the glass back on the table. 'This isn't helping us find the way into Corvega, though, is it?' She sighed.

No, it wasn't.

She turned back to the cupboard and began to root around again, leaving Garv with his own drink, feeling awkward. The first time that she'd ever spoken of what had happened to her family, and it had been to him.

'Vaultie?' He murmured.

'Hmm?' She murmured from under the cupboard.

'I'm... sorry I lost my temper with you in Lexington.' He admitted uncomfortably.

Her head reappeared from the dark space ad she smiled at him. 'Thank you, Garv. That means a lot.' She resumed trying to find the chem stash.

'Haven't you got something to say to me?' He demanded.

'Mmm - no.'

Oh so Thicket Excavations wasn't her fault?! And the ferals?! He was just about to argue that when Vaultie pushed aside a cooler containing god knows what and stiffened. There, in the back corner, was the bright orange container. 'Found you.' She grunted and pulled it out.

He scowled but warned 'I still don't like giving an old lady hard drugs.'

'I know.' She agreed. 'But Sturges says that it's our best chance. I trust Sturges.'

Yeah, so did Garv. With this though? He wasn't so sure.

'Do you think that Mama Murphy can see into the future?' Vaultie asked carefully.

'I don't know.' He answered as they stared down at the battered box.

The Jet inhaler looked so small in Mama Murphy's hand but she shook it expertly and brought it to her wrinkled lips.

'Ohhhh that feels better. The Sight can see…'

Garv threw Vaultie a scathing look as Mama Murphy hacked and coughed, the chemicals in the canister scarring and scouring her lungs. If the old woman died tonight he was absolutely not going to help dig a grave.

'I see a city...A factory.' Mama Murphy wheezed. 'So many people - so many doors. But one - one isn't as guarded as the rest. To the south-east there's a tunnel. It will lead you to Jared and then - oh.. Oh Sturges-'

'Mama Murphy?' Sturges asked in alarm. 'Are y'all okay?' He begged.

'You're gonna be too late, Sturges.' She whispered and looked up at the man with soulful eyes.

'Too late for what?' Sturges pressed.

'You know what.' Mama Murphy sighed and slumped back into her chair as the high wore off. She looked pale and fragile and drained. 'That's all The Sight will give me.'

Garv's eyes narrowed. It wasn't much to go on and he didn't like what she had to say about them being too late - but what did the old biddy know about that? She was fishing.

'I need to rest.' Mama Murphy sighed. 'These old bones aren't what they used to be.'

And they needed to prepare for Corvega.

As they left Mama Murphy and Sturges to watch over her come-down, the night had really drawn in and the air seemed crisp and cold - but Garv could see The Longs still working in a house not too far down the street, trying to patch up what they could before they were forced to sleep.

'What did Mama Murphy mean by "you're gonna be too late"?' Vaultie murmured as she watched Marcy Long berate her husband. One of these days, Garv would not be surprised if Jun Long took the hammer in his hand and beat his wife to death. He had the look of a hen-pecked husband who couldn't do anything right in his wife's eyes.

'I have no idea.' Garv lied. 'But I wouldn't take any of what that old fraud says at face value.'

'You're not a romantic then,' Vaultie smiled up at the stars.

'I'm a survivor.' Garv told her. 'We've got some supplies from Super Duper Mart. Get some rest - tomorrow we're heading for Lexington and this time, we're not leaving til Jared's head is on a spike.'

* * *

A/N: I'm running around like a headless chicken updating everything since my laptop spent a month or so in the repair shop. Sorry for the delay! Enjoy the new chapter and hello reviewers, favouriters and followers!


	11. Ad Quad Damnum

**Chapter 10: Ad Quad Damnum**

 _Part 1: According to the harm; Implies the reward or penalty ought to correspond to the damage suffered or inflicted._

Being back in Lexington had Garv's senses on high alert. Well, higher than usual. Jared had to have known they had survived Concord and been in Lexington - he had to. Now they were planning on assaulting his base. His home. He'd lost some of his men, but he'd had plenty more.

They had decided against bringing the dog, or the power armour - both would be too much of a giveaway. What frustrated Garv more than the ruins or Vaultie's chipper attitude on the way here now that she assumed everything was fixed between them - it fucking wasn't - was the fact they could not find the promised tunnel. Hell, he was sure at this point it didn't exist. The old lady was off her face on drugs - psychic or not, he had an inclination not to believe her and couldn't honestly believe his two companions did.

'I say we take the loading ramp.' He said after their third skirt around the massive facility - it was massive - and it would house the whole gang better than Libertalia ever could. Thick walls, resources, it was on the edge of the caravan trading routes - if they played it right, they'd be kings. 'Take out a few people, observe from one of the scaffolds -'

'The tunnel would be the safest. Mama Murphy said it was mostly unguarded-' Vaultie began.

'She was stoned out of her gourd!' He snapped. 'It might all be a figment of her imagination.' Relying on some wasted granny's "visions" would get them killed rather than help them and Garv did not survive this long to die at the whims of some Jetted out old bat.

'One more sweep, Garv?' Vaultie begged him.

'We don't even know it's around here!' Garv warned.

'Well, I'm game if you are.' Sturges chipped in. Garv crossed his arms and glared. Since they'd bumped into Vaultie, Sturges had begun to take her side more and more. He didn't know why, either, and he didn't like it. It would only last a little longer, though. They do this, and go their separate ways. She would no longer be his problem and Sturges would revert back to being Sturges. _His_ friend.

'You two can do another pointless search, but I'm staying _right he_ -' He went to lean against a piece of concrete, his foot shifted on a pile of decayed crap and Garv felt himself fall unexpectedly. ' _Fucking - fuck!_ ' It was hardly eloquent, but it conveyed his sentiments _perfectly_.

Sturges and Vaultie peered into the semi-gloom of the overlarge tunnel he'd fallen into. If Garv's ass wasn't soaking wet and in so much pain, he'd have cursed the look of bright expectation on Vaultie's face.

'Whaddaya know? Garv went and found it for us.' Sturges smirked.

Garv cursed all handymen to the pits of hell as he pulled himself up and out into the open world again. The whole back of his leathers were soaked, as was his hat. The tunnel-water smelled like Mirelurk and filth. If he wasn't in a bad mood before, he was now. Though, he had to admit, from the outside you could hardly see the pipe - it had rusted brown and was covered in mutated vines. It had almost rusted down to the concrete, too. The inside was barely big enough to walk in, provided you didn't mind walking kinked at the waist.

So what if the pipe was real, that didn't mean anything else the old fraud said was true.

The pipe stank and was almost pitch black as they moved further away from the entrance of vines but since Garv was the one that was most proficient with weapons - Vaultie being a newbie and Sturges being more handyman than cowboy - he was the one leading them. The tunnel only stretched out for another minute.

What he wasn't expecting at the end was a feral graveyard and an automated turret. It locked onto him immediately and fired rounds into the rust of the pipe.

'Shit!' Garv swore and plastered himself against the rounded side. Vaultie launched out of the pipe immediately, before he had a chance to grab onto that blue suit of hers and disappeared.

That was that, then. She was dead. What a lot of help she'd bee-

The turret shut down.

What? Suspiciously, Garv poked his head out of the tunnel, waiting for it to spool up again and start attacking, but it hung there, limply.

'What'd that girl do?' Sturges wondered as he crawled along beside Garv.

He didn't know.

They gently stepped over the bodies of the ferals just in case one wasn't _quite_ as dead as it looked - Ferals could take a beating - and moved further into the room.

There was a small office space to the left and Vaultie was standing in the doorway smiling. A hacked computer sat just behind her on an old, battered desk. 'I saw the cable.'

Garv and Sturges glanced to the floor. In the mass of feral bodies, they could barely make out the thick black wire that gave it power.

She could have been shot, she could have been _killed_ if the turret wasn't wholly focused on killing Garv first.

'It had to have something powering it, right?' She smiled.

'That it does!' Sturges replied.

Atom on a spit-roast. Could their pat-on-the-back pow-wow get any worse? The woman was lucky she didn't get a round to the back of the head.

'How the hell did you know it wouldn't lock on to you?' He demanded suspiciously.

She gave his angry, vehement face a bemused look. 'There was a court case a few years ago about it. A few years for _me_ \- anyway. The military were unhappy the Mk 1's had a propensity to fixate on one target. The manufacturers were sued and promised to pull that code in the Mk 2 and beyond. We had a class on it.'

He supposed they were lucky it was a Mk 1, then. The Mk 2's would not have been so forgiving. He wouldn't say she was smarter than him - brawn only got you so far in this world without brains, after all - but the high and mighty, almost flippant way she brushed off his demand made him furious. He'd already been riled up plenty by the stupidity of her actions without even _consulting_ him.

'Lets just get this done.' Garv snapped and avoided the hurt look on her face. He turned and began a slow, calculated walk down the corridor, careful to avoid jangling the cans that hung down from the ceiling. Sturges did the same. They both watched Vaultie flail to avoid making the cans jangle as she passed them. Garv shook his head. Why had he thought that bringing Vaultie here was a good idea? It was almost as if the duel with the Deathclaw that she had walked away from had been pure luck.

The pipes continued upward.

'Watch your footing.' Garv warned. He wouldn't put it past Jared to rely on a little more than a simple mk 1 turret. There could be grenade bouquets, scale bombs - even mounted hair-trigger shotguns.

There were an almost infinite number of ways simple things could be turned into traps but if you were smart - and careful - it was possible you'd be able to get by them all without setting one off, tipping off the patrols or both and avoiding loss of life and/or limb.

All three paused at the sound of footsteps. Two sets of footsteps. Sturges pushed a hand in front of Vaultie's Firecracker. The sound of a badly aimed shotgun could attract more ferals or more patrols, each one as bad as the other.

By comparison, a laser musket hardly made any sound at all.

Sturges pushed her back against the wall and planted his feet as Garv did the same on the other side. 'Hey,' He drawled as the footsteps got louder. 'This remind you of something?'

'Firing squad.' Garv answered.

The two people in patrol rounded the corner, following the pipe only to spot Garv and Sturges spooled up and ready for them. They hardly got in more than ' _What the-'_ before they were disintegrated. The sounds the lasers made as they hit and turned their targets to ash bounced around the pipe but faded after a few seconds. Sound leaked in from above after a few seconds, all three listened.

'What the fuck was that?' Someone demanded.

'It was nothing.' Came the reply. 'Probably the turret tearing up ferals.'

Sturges and Garv grinned at each other. Two down - a few dozen more to go.

Garv could hear patrols moving around. Voices echoing off the high walls. After that seemingly strange noise and a sudden burst of paranoia, it seemed everything had gone back to normal.

Black mark against Jared right there. Garv would never be stupid enough to dismiss a strange sound and he wouldn't have let people who worked for him get away with it either.

They ascended up the stairs and arrived at some sort of workshop room, off the main factory. There had to be somewhere where you did maintenance, right?

There were spotlights sweeping the stairs.

Shit. No way were they going up there without someone seeing them. Garv could hear the movement on the other side of the wall. Could count every clanging footstep as booted feet moved over metal. At least four people patrolling the grated floors up there.

How were they going to play this?

He saw the oil on the floor - the combustible materials everywhere.

Suddenly, he knew how they were going to play this. Just like Super Duper Mart. He pulled back as another spotlight swept over the doorway he'd been lurking in and caught Vaultie and Sturges' eyes. 'You still have that tiny piece, Vaultie?'

Thea blinked in surprise. 'The 10mm? Yeah.'

'Good. Alright, here's what we're going to do.' He whispered. 'We're going to take out the spotlights. That should get their attention. We're going to pull them into the workshop.'

'Which is covered in oil.' Sturges chipped in with a surprised look on his face. 'Worked for the ghouls, but raiders're smarter.'

'Not when they're on fire, they're not.' Garv replied. 'People're just as dumb and as panicky as ferals when they're burning.'

Vaultie looked decidedly uneasy at the idea of burning people alive. 'Isn't there some other way to-'

'Not without attracting a lot more attention and taking a lot more bullets.' Garv frowned. 'You weren't complaining about it in the supermarket.'

'We didn't have a choice, then!' She replied and squirmed uncomfortably.

'We had a deal.' Garv reminded her. 'You help us clear Corvega, we'll take you to Diamond City. You know what clearing Corvega means?'

'Killing Jared.'

'Killing people.'

* * *

A/N: Guest - He will always be our Precious Preston ™ he's just taking a while to get to boyscout mode again :) Vaultie will help him though!

It's been a while, peeps! Have 2000 words and all my love for raider!Garv. Also working on an expanded AUniverse because I cannot stop playing with this thing now. Anyone up for some Mobster Nick, some Conspiracy Theorist Piper or vigilante by night Hancock? I know I am!


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